AGRICULTURE. 



oats, potatoes, etc. It is confidently stated 

 that this selection of seed in cotton increases 

 the yield from twenty-five to fifty per cent., 

 and improves the quality so that it commands 

 1$ cent a pound more than the ordinary grades. 

 In cereals the increased production is nearly 

 as great; and experiments made with hops 

 prove that the careful selection of plants of 

 early varieties will bring the crop to market 

 nearly a month earlier, which would almost 

 double its value. 



The more thorough and extensive use of 

 manures, especially of mineral and concentrated 

 manures, is another step forward in the way 

 of progress. 



The demand fo'r the fossil phosphates, dis- 

 covered a few years since in the vicinity of 

 Charleston, S. C., is constantly increasing, and 

 fears are entertained of the exhaustion of the 

 supply at no very remote period. A recent 

 discovery of fossil phosphates, over a wide ex- 

 tent of territory, and in inexhaustible quanti- 

 ties, in Russia, promises, however, to supply 

 the lack. A. similar discovery at . Iceford, 

 Spitzbergen, has recently been brought into 

 the market. The utilization of sewage is at- 

 tracting increased attention not only in this 

 country, but in Europe. There are practical 

 difficulties in the way of its very general use, 

 in regard to its deodorization without the 

 destruction of its value as a manure, its eco- 

 nomical concentration, and its transporta- 

 tion to any considerable distance ; but these 

 will doubtless be eventually overcome. Mean- 

 while, there are extensive manufactories offish- 

 guano from fish-offal and from the millions of 

 menhaden, or moss-bunkers, caught every sum- 

 mer and autumn in Long Island Sound, and 

 rendering companies in most of our large 

 cities, which produce a highly-nitrogenous 

 manure from the dead animals and other offal 

 gathered in every large city. For all these 

 artificial manures there is an active and con- 

 stantly-increasing demand. It is also a grati- 

 fying indication of progress that the agricul- 

 turists of the Southern States, who, a few years 

 ago, could not be induced to apply manures to 

 their lands, are now the largest purchasers, 

 and the most strenuous advocates for thorough 

 manuring ; and that the Western agricultu- 

 rists, who trusted for so many years to the 

 fertility of their deep, rich soil, have begun to 

 believe in deep ploughing and thorough ma- 

 nuring, and are thereby gradually returning to 

 the great crops yielded, in the early days, by 

 their virgin soil. 



Stock-raising and the preparation and mar- 

 keting of beef-products have made great ad- 

 vances in Texas, and, to some extent, on the 

 plains. There are single enclosures of from 

 115,000 to 170,000 acres of pasturage, stocked 

 with 50,000 or 60,000 cattle, in which all the 

 processes of drying, concentrating, and con- 

 densing beef, the shipment of hides and tallow, 

 and the forwarding of the freshly-slaughtered 

 carcasses in refrigerating steamers to New 



Orleans, Philadelphia, and New York, are car- 

 ried on upon an immense scale. By these 

 methods the beef, much of which has hereto- 

 fore been wasted, will all be saved, and the 

 city markets benefited in obtaining better 

 meats at a reduced price. The application of 

 the Signal-Service system of weather predic- 

 tions to the use of agriculture, and the appoint- 

 ment by most of the agricultural societies of 

 committees of conference with the Signal-Ser- 

 vice Bureau to facilitate this beneficent pur- 

 pose, indicate the desire of the farmers gener- 

 ally for a higher measure of scientific culture 

 in its practical bearings upon their profession. 

 In this connection, too, we should notice the 

 great increase of farmers' clubs, agricultural 

 and horticultural societies, and associations for 

 the improvement of particular crops. The 

 agricultural colleges are, some of them at least, 

 demonstrating the wisdom of the provisions 

 for their organization. The Kansas Agricul- 

 tural College has done a good work in experi- 

 menting in the culture of trees on the wide 

 and treeless plains of that State, and has given 

 an impulse to tree-planting there which will 

 eventually change the climate, and restore to 

 those denuded lands the elements of a greater 

 fruitfulness and the capacity for sustaining a 

 dense population. 



The thorough and systematic method of ir- 

 rigation now adopted in California, Nevada, 

 Colorado, and to a considerable extent in 

 Utah, "Wyoming, and New Mexico, may well 

 give rise to the hope that, ere long, the Great 

 American Desert will exist only in name, and 

 that fertile fields, and eventually extensive 

 forests, will take the place of these wastes of 

 fand and alkali, where only the sage-bush and 

 saline plants could maintain their existence. 

 This system of irrigation needs to become uni- 

 versal over most of that region, and will do so 

 as soon as adequate capital can be enlisted 

 in the construction of irrigating canals and 

 ditches. The ruins of those ancient cities on 

 the elevated plains lying on either side of the 

 Green, Colorado Chiquito, and Colorado Rivers, 

 give abundant evidence that in their time 

 irrigation was practised over all that region, 

 and not only the lakes, and streams of the hill- 

 sides, but the torrents from the melting snow, 

 and the rain-water, were carefuly husbanded 

 to give fertility to the soil. 



The small but perceptible gain in the yield 

 per acre of our principal cereals shows that 

 there has been a positive change from the 

 reckless and exhaustive modes of culture, and 

 that our agriculturists have, at least, begun the 

 work of reform and improvement in cultiva- 

 tion of the soil. There is, however, great room 

 for further progress, and will be until we shall 

 have reached that point to which the Japanese 

 attained ages ago, when soils which yielded 

 their ample crops every year were even more 

 productive than when their surface was first 

 broken by the plough at least two thousand 

 years before. 



