12 



AGRICULTUKE. 



The crop of MAIZE or INDIAN CORN was some- 

 what below that of the previous year, though 

 not as much as was at first supposed. In West 

 Virginia and about half of Ohio, Indiana, and 

 Illinois, there was a great falling off from the 

 drought. In Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, 

 Iowa, and Kansas, as well as in all the Southern 

 States, except Delaware, Virginia, and North 

 Carolina, there was an increase, and in many 

 of them a large one over the yield of the previ- 

 ous year. The quality of the crop was uniform- 

 ly good. The entire crop may be safely put 

 down at eight hundred and fifty million bushels, 

 against eight hundred and eighty millions in 

 1866. 



The BUCKWHEAT crop is below that of last 

 year, and probably does not exceed seventeen 

 million bushels. 



The POTATO crop is more deficient than any 

 other. The drought affected it in. the West and 

 in the Eastern and Middle States the potato-bug, 

 or ten-lined spearman, almost destroyed the 

 vines. The tubers, after being gathered, rotted 

 very badly. Some of the new varieties, such 

 as the Goodrich, the Harrison, etc., were not 

 affected by the rot. The aggregate crop (ex- 

 cept the Pacific States) will not much exceed 

 ninety million bushels. 



The HAT crop was very large, and probably 

 exceeded twenty-seven million tons. 



As we have already stated, there was a seri- 

 ous falling off in the SORGHUM crop, amounting 

 to nearly fifteen per cent, less than the crop of 

 1866, which was itself considerably below the 

 average. 



The COTTON crop was estimated at the close 

 of December, 1867, as exceeding two million 

 five hundred thousand bales, of four hundred 

 pounds each, an increase of seven hundred and 

 fifty thousand bales on the production of the 

 previous year. This was, under the circum- 

 stances, a fair crop, taking into account the 

 floods of the Mississippi valley, the scarcity and 

 inefficiency of labor, and the diminished acreage 

 in cotton, since the war. 



The crop of TOBACCO will prove to have been 

 about forty million pounds less than in 1866, 



or not far from three hundred and fifty million 

 pounds. 



The HOE crop in its two great districts, Cen- 

 tral New York and Central New England, was 

 considerably affected, as it has been for two or 

 three years, by the aphides or hop-lice and in 

 low situations by the blight, so that the crop 

 was at least one-tenth below the average. A 

 much larger quantity of hops than had ever beeu 

 grown before in that section, were sent to mar- 

 ket from Wisconsin, where the hop-yards have 

 just come into full bearing. These are said to 

 have been of very good quality. The total prod- 

 uct is therefore somewhat larger than usual. 

 Florida and Arkansas have also commenced the 

 hop-culture. 



There has been a material diminution in the 

 number of SHEEP, owing to the great depression 

 in the price of wool, and the number of sheep 

 and lambs sold for slaughter is vastly in excess 

 of any former year. The increase of sheep had 

 been more rapid than the demand for wool, the 

 number of sheep, as we showed last year, having 

 nearly doubled in seven years ; and when the 

 price of wool fell so low as to make wool-grow- 

 ing unprofitable, the owners of flocks had no al- 

 ternative but to fatten and send tothe market 

 both sheep aud lambs. The wool-growers of 

 the United States are not alone affected by this 

 reduction in the price of wool. In Australia, 

 where the number of sheep has been increasing 

 at the rate of nearly fifty per cent, per annum, 

 wool has become so thoroughly a drug, that 

 several large establishments have recently been 

 erected for the manufacture of mutton tallow 

 by boiling or steaming the entire carcass of the 

 sheep, and one of these consumes ten thousand 

 carcasses per week. Our wool-growers are not 

 yet reduced to this necessity. 



By way of comparison of the productiveness 

 of our staple crops per acre with those of the 

 European states, we insert the following table 

 of the crops and acreage of the principal states 

 of Europe in 1866, as collected for and reported 

 by the Bavarian Bureau of Statistics, premising 

 only that the year was an unfavorable one for 

 full crops in most of these states : 



CHOPS OF SEVERAL COUNTRIES IN 



EUROPE, ACCORDING 

 BAVARIA, 1866. 



TO THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS IN 



No year passes without its candidates for ad- those which possess the least merit are often 

 mission among the staples of agriculture, and pressed with the greatest pertinacity. Among 



