384 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



just when the farmers began to fear that the straw 

 would be too stout and their crops lodged, dry weather 

 set in, and, while it checked the growth of the straw, it 

 ripened the grain finely. The weather during harvest 

 was never better, and the result has been that the en- 

 tire crop has been saved in good order. The average 

 throughout the State is thought by the best informed 

 farmers to be about eighteen bushels to the acre, or 

 about four bushels greater than for several years past. 

 On some large farms, well cultivated, the average for 

 several hundred acres is nearly twenty-five bushels to 

 the acre, and on single fields as high as thirty bushels. 

 Of course the farmers, who sowed a great breadth of 

 wheat in the Spring, are in the best of spirits now. 



"But the wheat is almost the only crop that is really 

 good. The corn has been everywhere light, and not 

 more than one-half or two- thirds of a crop has been 

 gathered ; potatoes have not done well ; the dairies of 

 the State promised well early in the season, but the dry 

 weather of the summer greatly reduced the amount of 

 milk. The manager of one cheese factory told me that 

 while he received 20,000 pounds of milk a day during 

 a part of May and June, he was only receiving 13,000 

 pounds now. The hops and tobacco that I have seen 

 look well, but I have no means of comparing the crops 

 with those of former years. It will be seen therefore 

 that the farmers will need all that they get for their 

 wheat this year. 



" At the close of the war, and for a year or two after* 

 ward, the farmers of Wisconsin were generally out of 

 debt and a little ' forehanded.' The high prices that 

 they had received for their produce of every kind had 

 enabled them to pay off what they were before owing. 



