40 LAND AND LABOR. 



In going over the farm I had an excellent opportu- 

 nity to observe the difference between good and bad 

 cultivation. In some of the fields a portion of the 

 wheat looked well, and would in all probability yield 

 eighteen to twenty-two bushels to the acre ; whilst 

 the other portion was short, thin, choked with weeds, 

 and would not yield more than ten bushels. One part 

 had been well plowed, harrowed, and seeded, showing 

 wheat without weeds, of fine growth and good stand. 

 There can be no doubt that much of the partial as 

 well as total failures that I observed might have been 

 very much lessened, if not altogether averted, by bet- 

 ter cultivation. Here, as in other places, the corn, 

 oats, and barley gave better promise than the wheat, 

 though some of the wheat fields had a very good ap- 

 pearance. In a number of places there were gangs 

 of a dozen or more plows engaged in breaking new 

 ground for next year's crop. Each plow was of the 

 sulky pattern, with disc coulter, drawn by three mules 

 or horses, the driver occupying a seat between the 

 wheels. One of the plows was of a new pattern, be- 

 ing without a landside, and cutting a sixteen inch 

 furrow four and a half inches deep, which it cut and 

 turned more beautifully than any I had before seen. 



On this farm, and at other points on this road, 

 grasshoppers were doing some damage. Earlier in 

 the season the superintendent had made a raid upon 

 tin -in. and showed me some heaps of a black mass, 

 which he said were fifty-six bushels of that insect 

 ] la^uc which In- had caught in a tar machinp, from 

 UK; side of one quarter section. 



Everywhere fruit growing appeared to be alto- 



