AGKIOULTUKE. 



ty, and Town, throughout the Northern States 

 during the autumn of 1863, were largely attend- 

 ed, and gave, to some extent, an additional 

 stimulus to the development of agriculture. 



The grants of land, by the Government, un- 

 der the Agricultural College Act of 1862, have 

 been accepted by all the Northern States, and 

 arrangements made by most of them either to 

 organize Agricultural Colleges, or to add an 

 Agricultural Department to colleges already 

 established. In New Hampshire, Dartmouth 

 College receives the endowment, and is to or- 

 ganize an Agricultural School in connection 

 with the Chandler Scientific School ; in Mas- 

 sachusetts there is a vigorous competition be- 

 tween the prominent towns of the common- 

 wealth, for the location of the Agricultural 

 College; Khode Island bestows the lands 

 upon Brown University, which is to have an 

 Agricultural Department ; Connecticut donates 

 them to the Agricultural Department of Yale 

 College, connected with the Sheffield Scientific 

 School ; New York divides hers between the 

 Agricultural College at Ovid, New York, and 

 the People's College, at Havana. Pennsyl- 

 vania has handed over her share to her ex- 

 cellent Agricultural College in Central County, 

 the most efficient institution of its class in the 

 United States, and which, by this grant, will be 

 placed in a condition of still greater efficiency. 

 In most of the "Western States, where Agricul- 

 tural Colleges have been already chartered, the 

 grant has been bestowed upon them, and will, 

 in most instances, secure their speedy organi- 

 zation, or if already organized, aid in their rapid 

 development. 



Foreign agriculture offers but little of special 

 interest at the present time. . The crops of 

 cereals in 1863, in Great Britain and on the 

 continent, were generally good, and were for 

 the most part successfully harvested. The 

 price of wheat, in England, which, in Septem- 

 ber, 1860, had been $1.62 per American bushel, 

 in 1861, $1.45, and, in 1862, $1.40, was in Sep- 

 tember, 1863, $1.16 a very marked reduction ; 

 and the potato crop was generally good in 

 Great Britain, though almost a failure in Ire- 

 land. In France, the crop, though injured in 

 some quarters by the drought, was on the 

 whole a fair average. The practice of holding 

 regional agricultural expositions in the differ- 

 ent departments of France, annually, is coming 

 rapidly into favor. For the most part these 

 have been confined thus far to the exhibition 



of horses, cattle and sheep, and agricultural 

 implements, but in some, lately, fruits have 

 been exhibited with advantage. A few par- 

 ticulars concerning the agricultural products 

 of Sweden, a country which has furnished so 

 large a body of farmers to the Northwestern 

 States, may be of interest to the readers of the 

 Cyclopaedia. They were collected by the Uni- 

 ted States consul at Gottenburg. 



The crop of 1863, which at one time promised 

 to be unusually large, was damaged by rainy 

 weather during harvest time, and thus reduced 

 to an average amount, of which the figures in 

 the table below may be taken as a fair state- 

 ment. 



About 1,500,000 Swedish acres, equal to 48,- 

 600,000 English acres, are devoted to growing 

 grain, and 100,000 Swedish acres, or 3,200,000 

 English acres, to potatoes; yet the yield of 

 potatoes is so large, that it stands in the ratio 

 of 3 to 5. The potato can be raised in the 

 short summer of these high latitudes, when no 

 grain, save barley, can live, and thus becomes 

 the " staff of life " to the Swedish peasants. 

 Fine crops of potatoes, and occasionally of bar- 

 ley, are raised far within the arctic circle, and 

 even above 70 north latitude, the highest cul- 

 tivated land in the world. 



The Alsike clover is the most productive 

 clover in Sweden ; cuts about five tons to the 

 Swedish acre, can be made to yield two crops 

 in the short Swedish summer, and has been in- 

 troduced into Scotland to great advantage. 



There is a kind of egg plant called " Gula 

 Plummon," which is produced in the middle 

 and southern districts of Sweden in consider- 

 able quantities. This plant is of a light straw 

 color, firm, juicy, and of a peachy flavor. It is 

 thought it would flourish in the northern coun- 

 ties of New England and New York. 



This table is the average yearly product of 

 Sweden, taking the figures for five years to 1861 : 



The following table shows the exports and 

 imports of grain for seven years : 



* One tunn equals four bushels English. 



t One centner equals 93 pounds English. 



