m 



tion, but I have no grounds for speaking with confidence. The 

 calculation of an inquisitive farmer in Conway in respect to oat- 

 straw is as follows : — One shock, yielding one bushel of grain 

 to a shock, will make three bundles after threshing. One bun- 

 dle will weigh twenty lbs. or one shock will weigh fifty lbs. — 

 then an acre yielding thirty-five shock, or thirty-five bushels, 

 will give 2,100 v/eight of straw. A crop of wheat yielding five- 

 and-twenty bushels, it is said by some, will yield from one to 

 one and a half ton of straw. This is a loose mode of estimat- 

 ing things. I wish this matter could be ascertained ; and the 

 best mode would be, by repeated experiments to determine 

 what relation the weight of straw bears lo the weight of grain. 



6. Wheat cannot be said to be cultivated to any great ex- 

 tent in Franklin county ; and winter-wheat scarcely at all. — 

 New York flour reaches the western and north-western parts of 

 the county directly from Troy, N. Y. ; and a great deal comes 

 up the Connecticut and is landed at the mouth of the Deerfield 

 river, from whence it is taken into different towns. Several 

 farmers in the county however grow it in small quantities. I 

 know two farmers who one year produced more than 400 bush- 

 els each. These were extraordinary cases; but they show 

 what under good management might be done. There is no es- 

 sential or insuperable difficulty in growing wheat in the coun- 

 ty, and it ought to have its place in every established rotation. 

 The chief circumstances of discouragement have been the 

 rust and the grain insect. One great cause of failure has been, 

 however, a negligent cultivation. The rust is to a considera- 

 ble degree dependent on the weather ; and when it takes place, 

 usually occurs at the time of the most luxuriant growth of the 

 plants when the air is hot and sultry, and there are frequent 

 changes of rain and sunshine. It is likewise somewhat con- 

 nected with the situation in which the crop is grown. If cul- 

 tivated in a low and confined situation, it seems more likely to 

 suffer than if grown in a high situation, where the air has a free 

 circulation. Against the grain insect, {cecidomyia ^n7ea,) there 

 seems to have been discovered a perfect preventive. I have 



