266 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Harrison county is well adapted to cereals, stock and fruit. The wide bottoms 

 along the Ohio river, on our southern border, and on the various streams that 

 traverse the county, are among the finest corn lands of the State, and on which this 

 year grew one of the finest crops of that cereal that we have ever produced, the 

 most of which has already found its way into market at a fair price. 



Our uplands, or table-lands, are among the best wheat-producing lands in the 

 Stat*, our best farmers frequently raising on them as much as forty bushels per 

 acre of the very best quality of grain. 



Fruits, especially apples and peaches are extensively grown, and so far have been 

 very remunerative; also small fruits are grown with considerable profit. But our 

 farmers are paying more attention to stock, especially horses, cattle and hogs. In 

 horses their attention in turned mostly to heavy draft, the Percheron and Clydes- 

 dale, of which we have some very fine animals, the diffusion of whose blood is 

 making a marked difference in the appearance and value of the horse product of 

 the county. In cattle, we have Shorthorns, Jerrcys and common stock, the latter, 

 or a mixture, mostly prevailing, yet we have Fome very nice cattle and some fine 

 milkers. One farmer I know who has three cows of common origin from which 

 he made forty eight pounds of butter per week, and averaged thirty-six pounds 

 per week for the entire year, but then, these were extra good common cows. The 

 improvement in hogs has been greater than in any other industry. Berkshire and 

 Poland China are the principal breeds; in fact, there is scarcely a hog in the 

 county but what it is one or the other or a cross from them. 



Sheep. As I before said, there is not much interest manifested in them, although 

 this is one of the best counties in the State for the rearing of sheep. On our 

 cheap hill lands along and back from our water courses they ought to be raised 

 very profitably, water and grass both being plenty. 



Although Harrison county is one of the oldtst settled counties in the State, the aver- 

 age production of grain to the acre is much more than it was twenty years ago, and 

 with the building up of manufactories and the opening up of our stone quarries, 

 thus creating a better market for our products, we expect to see the farmer stimu- 

 lated to still greater efforts. After we have said all that we may in regard to the 

 improvement in stock and the advancement in farming, there is yet one thing in 

 which Harrison county takes the lead, and that is in furnishing population for 

 the vast unsettled domain of the West. Go where you will you will rub against 

 a Harrison county man. The roads leading to the West carry them away fall 

 and spring by the wagon load ; the railroads carry them away by the hundreds ; 

 the Ohio river, with its line of packets, carry them away daily, without in the least 

 diminishing the visible supply, and the hiUs and the hollows seem to be as full of 

 life as ever. 



John Q. A. Sieg, 



Pi esident. 



