G2 FARMING IN THE WESTERN STATES. 



for liis live stock in winter, through the great productiveness of 

 maize, has made pork raising one of the most important feat 

 ures of western agriculture. The State of Iowa reports many 

 fields which produce as high as one hundred and five bushels 

 of Indian corn to the acre. In the year 187:3, over two and a 

 half millions of acres were devoted to this crop, which covered 

 one fourth of all the land in cultivation, and the supply was so 

 greatly in excess of the demand, that large quantities of it were 

 used as fuel; corn at eighteen cents a bushel being cheaper 

 than wood at eight dollars and fifty cents per cord. In the 

 year 1872, Illinois raised the enormous quantity of two hun 

 dred and seventeen million, six hundred and twenty-eight thou 

 sand bushels of corn. It is very important that the farmer 

 should understand the relative value of corn and wheat, and 

 how a surplus of either affects the market. The increase in 

 the production of corn always brings a proportionate increase 

 in live stock, fed and fattened with it, and thus the productive 

 ness of the soil is maintained by corn culture to a far greater 

 degree than by wheat. The agricultural prosperity of what arc 

 now called the States of the Interior, is due far more to corn 

 than to wheat and wool. 



Wheat culture in those States, though developed to an enor 

 mous magnitude, has had the same history and results that 

 have been sufficiently dwelt upon in describing exclusive pro 

 duction on the Atlantic coast. &quot;If wheat growing was the only 

 branch of western husbandry, the country would soon be pov 

 erty-stricken. They cannot compete with the newer lands of 

 California and Oregon,&quot; says the President of the Michigan 

 State Agricultural Society. &quot; Our old agriculture, to save it 

 self from ruin, must turn to new sources of wealth, must seek 

 new branches of husbandry, and learn lessons of political econ 

 omy from her immediate and older neighbors, Ohio, Indiana 

 and Illinois. All those have relinquished wheat growing, be 

 cause it became necessary to do so, and have turned their at 

 tention to stock. The products of her dairies, her beef and 

 pork, are worth more than her wheat ever was, when the land 

 no longer refused to yield wheat.&quot; 



The process of soil deterioration from continuous wheat cult 

 ure, was far more rapid west of the great lakes than it had been 

 at the East, in the days of the sickle and the scythe. The in 

 vention of improved implements has saved millions of dollars 



