488 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



These reports are evidently based, in a great measure, on conjectural es- 

 timates, but are doubtless made with a wish to arrive at and present the truth. 

 If, then, where the estimate is, for example, from 10 to 20, and so in other 

 cases, we take the medium as the average, it will be found that if we take these 

 counties as the average of the State, the average product is in wheat about 17 

 bushels ; in corn 40 ; and in oats 33. Can any one inform us, or give a guess, 

 what was the average in Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia when they 

 had been opened not longer than Ohio ? Two friends of ours, one in Talbot county 

 and one in Dorset, made last year, the first, more than 70 bushels of corn on 

 upward of 40 acres, and the last more than 50 on 200 acres. They are, " av coorse," 

 as the Irishman says, both subscribers to The Farmers' Library and Monthlt 



would be the erection of manufactories, especially of wool and cotton, ou the immense water- 

 powers of our streams and canals. It is doubted if anj' section of the Union ofl'ers equal facilities 

 tor such establishments, in cheap and durable water-power, aud in the abundance and low price 

 of timber, stone, and all the materials for building, including the very small cost of lots and lands ; 

 and in all these respects no part of the State is more inviting to the manufacturing capitalist than 

 the valley of Muskingum. To name only a single point : at Roscoe the canals bring together the 

 whole -water-power of the Tuscarawas and Wallionding, the latter .standing in the canal at this 

 place 40 feet above the level of the Muskingum, and the canal being comparatively little used, 

 the whole power of the stream, capable of performing almost anything desired, could be used for 

 manufacturing purposes; and sites for a whole manufacturing village could be purchased com- 

 paratively for a trifle. What I have said of Roscoe is a feeble portrait of the advantages for 

 manufacturing purposes of hundreds of places in our State — to say nothing of the coal district on 

 our north-eastern border. 



Your honorable Board cannot do a better service to the agricultural and other interests of the 

 State than by calling the attention of manufacturing capitalists to this subject. By establishing 

 manufactories in the West, they would avail themselves of the certain and unfluctuating tanjf'nf 

 distance; saving the carriage of goods from the East to the West, and the carriage of the raw 

 materials, wool and cotton, and provisions fiom the West to the East ; and these advantages, to- 

 gether with the cheapness of water-power, lands and building materials, would be unciianged by 

 political ups or downs, ins or outs. Will you not present this matter in a strong and clear light 

 to the great manufacturing capitalists of the Union ? — urge them to come aud see the immense ca- 

 pabilities and facilities with which we can present them. 



Live- Stock.— B-orees dfi^Q ; cattle 12,50.3; sheep 47,001); hogs 17,728. 



X There is no report ot average crops for this county, but in lieu of that we have something bet- 

 ter — the followicg reflections by Isaac Simms, President of the Agricultural Societj- of the county, 

 which sliows that one man, at least, is alive to the disgrace that attaches to all communities that 

 betray indilTerence to the education of their children. He not only knows the seat and nature of 

 the disease, but, like a skillful physician, he prescribes the appropriate remedy : 



" In vain shall you address the man of gray hairs, who, having always plowed so, has yet har- 

 vested wheat, and who, having never manured, has yet gathered corn. But place his son and 

 daughter in the district school, under a teacher of ordinary intelligence, who, having studied, 

 shall teach, among other things, a siiitnhle course of rural economy and agricultural science — 19 

 them, thus trained, rational experiment and accumulations of knowledge in Agriculture will be- 

 come a necessity, and intercommunication of results and opinions a delight. To the popular edu- 

 cation, tlwn, lef'lhe energies of good, men he directed. The district school system of Ohio is per- 

 ishing by the most cruel neglect. It were capable of all that is elevating and excellent, were it 

 made to improve with tin; grovi'th of the people in numbers and wealth. But it stands, while all 

 else advances: and the youth crying for bread, receive a stone! Vast and ittimilahle are the 

 sources of national grcat'ncss lying ready to he evolved in the untried dc^iths of the juvenile mind. 

 To this level must t^tatesmen sink their shafts, before the clear waters oj general intelligence tvill 

 gush abundantly. 



II One of the most gratifying things in all these Reports, in our view, is the following— by 

 whom it does not appear — from Miami county : 



The number of members at present is seventy-five, with a reasonable prospect of a large ac- 

 cession bolbre the conimencenu'nt of the ensuing season. The Society having been organized at 

 so late a period, it was deemed inexpedient to have an exhibition for awarding premiums the 

 present year. Thi.s resolution was made in view of the chief benefits sought to be attained by 

 the organization of Agricultural Societies. These advantages are to be found, not so much in the 

 production of extraonlinary results as in the establi.>ihment or discovery of means and processes 

 by which a given result may be attained with the least amount of ex[iendiluit', whether it be of 

 labor or of capital. Skill and intkllioknce are to be encouraged, rather than a blind reliance 

 upon chance and the operations of Nature, without those aids which she requires at the hands of 

 man. if he would enjoy tiiose bounties \\ liicli she is capable of bestowing. In .short, we believe 

 that the premium should be awarded to the ma.n, rather than to tin; bullock or the porker brought 

 for exhibition. The Society have appropriated the sum of one hundred dollars for tJie purchase 

 of BOOKS to form the cotnrneHcement vf an Agricultural Society. 

 (1008') 



