AGRICULTURE. 



13 



TABLE SHOWING- THE AVERAGE YIELD OF FARM PRODUCTS PER ACRE FOR THE TEAR 1867. 



The stock-raisers of the country have met 

 with heavy losses during the past year from 

 the splenic or Texan fever, pleuro-pneumonia, 

 and other diseases among horned cattle, for a 

 full account of which see " CATTLE, RECENT 

 EPIDEMIC DISEASES OF," in this volume ; the 

 mortality among swine, from Hog Cholera, has 

 also been very great, amounting, according to 

 the statement of the Commissioner of Agricul- 

 ture, to not less, than $15,000,000. There have 

 been also complaints of heavy losses in the 

 flocks of sheep in Illinois, Texas, and some 

 other States from grub, scab, and foot-rot. In 

 Texas and Georgia an epidemic which seems 

 to partake of the character of cerebro-spinal 

 meningitis, has prevailed with very fatal re- 

 sults among the horses. 



The new textile fibre, Ramie, is attracting 

 much attention, and is likely to be very 

 thoroughly tested during the coming year. 

 Senator Sprague, of Rhode Island, one of the 

 largest manufacturers of cotton and woollen 

 goods in* the United States, has become so fully 

 satisfied of its good qualities, that he has pur- 

 chased a large estate in Florida to be devoted 

 exclusively to its cultivation. It is said to be 

 very hardy, not liable to be attacked by any of 

 the known insect depredators, to produce a 

 fibre intermediate in character between silk and 

 linen, and to yield somewhat more than three 

 times as large a quantity to the acre as cotton, 

 and in the extreme South to produce three or 

 four crops a year. It is cultivated much in the 



same way as sugar-cane. How much of all 

 this is true will probably be known a year 

 hence. 



The immense waste of sewage matters, espe- 

 cially in our great cities, and the startling de- 

 crease in the fertility of our cultivated lands, 

 after a few years of liberal crops, despite the 

 attempts to renew their productiveness by -ar- 

 tificial or carefully-husbanded natural manures, 

 have properly excited the solicitude of large- 

 minded and intelligent agriculturists. The 

 most promising plan for restoring in part to the 

 soil the elements of fertility, which have been 

 drawn from it by the consumption of food, 

 would seem to be the adoption of some method 

 of deodorizing and disinfecting human excre- 

 mentitious matters, and using them as fertiliz- 

 ers. This is very perfectly and readily accom- 

 plished, wherever they can be used, by Rev. 

 -Henry Moule's earth -closets. The disinfectant 

 and deodorizer which he uses is simply dried 

 earth, which possesses great power of absorp- 

 tion, and prevents any unpleasant odor. It 

 can be used by his system repeatedly for this 

 purpose by simple drying, and then becomes a 

 more active and perfect fertilizer than the best 

 guano. The fertility of the cultivated lands of 

 China and Japan, which have been for three 

 or four thousand years under cultivation, has 

 been maintained by the use of these manures. 

 Many of the failures of our great staple crops, 

 from rust and blight, from midge and Hessian 

 fly, from army and boll worm, from caterpillars 



