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XXIV. Secoud Series. ROCHESTER, N. Y., OCTOBER, 1863. 



No. 10. 



;7HEAT CTJLTUBE IN WESTERN NEW "SORK. 



DDRKSS DELIVERED AT THE FAIR OP THE MONROE AGRl- 

 LTDRAL SOCIETT AND THE INTERNATIONAL WHEAT 

 iHOW AT ROCHESTER, N. T., SEPTEMBER 10, 1863, 

 BY JOSEPH HARRIS, PRESI&ENT OF TUB SOOIETX. 



• is with great diffidence that I appear before 

 to-day. According to the Constitution of the 

 .roe County Agricultural Society, it. is "the 

 ' of the President to deliver an address upon 

 subject of agriculture at the Annual Exhibition, 

 rocure an address to be delivered," I was as 

 ous to procure "a substitute" as any drafted 

 in the county ; but our worthy Treasurer and 

 other members of the Board of Managers 

 iglit that, as it would cost considerable to pro- 

 ' some distinguished orator from abroad, and as 

 )or fellow, could not charge anything, it would 

 luch better for the President to deliver the ad- 

 9 himself. If my address does not please you, 

 g that you will recollect that it costs nothing; 

 it interesting, it will be cheap; and if not in- 

 ctive, I am determined it shall at least have 

 merit— it shall be short. 



shall say nothing about the state of the coun- 

 -notliing about abolitionists or copperheads — 

 ling about conservatives or radicals. For half 

 lOur or so we may with safety lay aside these 

 iting questions, and coniine our tlioughts to ag- 

 Iture. Our brave brothers have buckled on 

 sword and gone forth to battle. They 

 do their duty ; let us do ours. We are 

 iding a million dollars a day ; and every acre 

 land in the country is mortgaged to pay the 

 ;. But this is not the first time our lands have 

 1 mortgaged. It is not many years since there 

 e mortgages on half the farms in the county. 

 V the majority of farmers are entirely out of 

 t. The money has been raised out of the soil, 

 sly men who have accomplished so much will 

 shrink from the task which now lies before 

 n. But it behooves us all to be industrious, 

 Lful, iutelligent and economical. Farmers are 



the mainstay of the nation. Our wealth comes 

 out of the soil. According to the last census, we 

 have in the United States 163,261,389 acres of 

 land under cultivation. Now if we could increase 

 the productions of our farms only one dollar per 

 acre, this alone would very soon pay off our national 

 debt. There is a demand for all the grain we can 

 raise. England is becoming more dependent eveiy 

 year on America for breadstuffs. And fortunate 

 was it for her as for us that our harvests for the 

 past three years were so abundant. 



Genesee Whea.t and Genesee Floue are cele- 

 brated throughout the world. There was a time 

 when Genesee flour was made from Genesee wheat ; 

 but on asking, our Eochester millers to subscribe a 

 little towards defraying the expenses of our Wheat 

 Show, some of them said they did not care whether 

 the wheat of this section was good, bad or indif- 

 ferent. The great proportion of the so-called 

 Genesee flour is no longer made from Genesee 

 wheat. Since the disastrous wet harvest of 1855, 

 when one-half the wheat sprouted in the field, the 

 Genesee Country has lost its prestige as a wheat- 

 growing section. The midge had made its appear- 

 ance a year or two previous, but had done com- 

 paratively little damage. In 1856 its ravages were 

 so extensive, that in February, 1857, two meetings 

 of the Monroe County Farmers' Club were held at 

 the Court-house in this city, for the purpose of de- 

 termining " What substitute for the wheat crop can 

 be adopted with most profit in this county ? " 



That our wheat crop was becoming, or had be- 

 come, quite precarious was universally felt. It 

 was a dark period in the agij-icultural history of 

 Western New York. Some of our most prominent 

 farmers, and the editors of at least one agricultural 

 paper, advocated the abandonment of wheat cul- 

 ture. Some recommended barley as a substitute, 

 others beans, while our enterprising nursery friends 

 thought we could not do better than raise apples 

 and pears— or at least plant out the trees I Others, 



