84 OATS. BARLEY. SUGAR. POTATOES. 



Oats are not so certain a crop, but they are extensively 

 grown in northern Illinois, and average about forty bushels 

 an acre. They are light compared with good Scotch oats, and 

 more resemble the oats of Northern Germany. 



Barley is a valuable crop when it succeeds, as it is largely 

 used in the making of beer, for which a growing demand is 

 springing up throughout America. I have little doubt that 

 the application of lime to the prairie would render it a better 

 barley soil. The crop averages forty bushels an acre, on suit- 

 able soils. 



Sorghum saccharatum, or Chinese sugar-cane, is cultivated 

 in every part of the State, as yet experimentally, for the pro- 

 duction of sugar. The leaves are found very succulent and 

 nutritious as fodder when taken off before the plant ripens. It 

 grows precisely like Indian corn, and can be produced success- 

 fully on the best corn soils. It must not be sown near broom 

 corn, as the plants hybridise and both are deteriorated. Some 

 carefully conducted experiments show that the yield of sugar, 

 per acre, from this plant has amounted to 1221 pounds, with 

 seventy-four gallons of molasses, which is about two-thirds of 

 an average cane sugar crop in Louisiana. It has been satis- 

 factorily proved that this plant may be made a substitute for 

 the production of sugar by white labour, should any circum- 

 stance hereafter curtail the cane produce of the slave States. 

 The prairie soil is also admirably adapted for the growth of 

 sugar beet. 



Potatoes are a productive and valuable crop in the northern 

 part of the State. They yield from three to seven tons an 

 acre, which sell at from 305. to 31. a ton. 



The rates of price for agricultural produce in America, as 

 has been already shown, depend on the increase of the popu- 

 lation, and the capability of the land to produce certain crops. 

 Price is also very much modified by improved means of rail- 



