

^'•^ .^i'.§®f7MiI 



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Vol. XV., Second Series. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y., JULY, 1854. 



Kg. Y. 



THE GENESEE FARMER, 



A MONTHLY JOL"R.\'AL OP 



AGRICULTURE & HORTICULTURE. 



VOLUME XV., SECOXD SEIRES. 1854r. 



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WHEAT-CULTURE IN THE UNITED 

 STATES AND CANADA. 



We congratulate the farmers of tlie United States 

 and Canada who possess lauds adapted to the eco- 

 nomical production of wheat, on the briorht prospects 

 before them. Flour is now sellinn: in Rochester at 

 eleven dollars a barrel, which is higher than it has 

 been in thirty-five years ; and there are what appear 

 to us good reasons for believing that wheat-culture 

 is destined to be a very profitable business in the 

 valley of the Great Lakes on this continent, in all 

 time to come. A few facts illustrative of this subject 

 will be submitted to the consideration of the reader: 

 France, and the United Kingdom of England, Wales, 

 Scotland and Ireland, contain a population of about 

 sixty-five millions, who are fast acquiring that higher 

 standard of comfort which enables the masses to con- 

 sume good wheat bread in place of much cheaper 

 vegetable food. For indefinite ages the great body 

 of the people ia Europe have consumed, compara- 

 tively, little wheat; being compelled to subsist mainly 

 on various kinds of pulse, potatoes, and other tuber- 

 ous roots, and rye, oat, barley and corn meal. By 

 the discoveries and inventions in arts, and the ad- 

 vancement of sciences, their labor is far more pro- 

 ductive now than it has ever before been, their wages 

 are higher, and, consequently, they are able to live 

 better, and are glad of an opportunity of so doing. 

 Oificial returns made to Parfiament show that the 

 people of the United Kingdom have doubled their 

 annual consumption of sugar in ten years — a re- 



markable fact, considering the comparatively small 

 increase of population. In 1847, the British nation, 

 before the discovery of gold in Australia and Cali- 

 fornia, and when labor was not so well paid as it now 

 is, imported for consumption 32,000,000 bushels of 

 Indian corn and 4,464,757 quarters of wheat. In 

 1853, it imported 6,235,864 quarters of wheat, and 

 only 14,168,856 bushels of corn. These figures show 

 a decrease of the consumption of our Indian com of 

 more than half, and an increase in the consumption 

 of wheat of about fifty per cent, in seven years. In 

 Northern and Central Europe, in Italy, France and 

 the United States, brown bread and corn bread are 

 giving place to wheat bread, whenever the former 

 have long been eaten. "Rye and Ind!%,n" in New 

 England, "hoe-cake" "pones" and "corn dodgei-s" at 

 the South and South-west, are becoming historical 

 Place good wheat bread and that made of meal on 

 the tables of the million, and the old habit of eating 

 meal bread, or meal dumplings and porridge, will 

 in a few years cease to exist. The poor in Ro- 

 chester pay eleven dollars a barrel for flour rather 

 than consume meal at less that half the cost, because 

 their wages are generally good, and they have always 

 been in the practice of eating flour in this fine wheat- 

 gi'owing district. 



In the British West Indies, Cuba, Brazil and Cen- 

 tral America, the consumption of our wheat flour is 

 on the increase. We have before us the oSicial Re- 

 ports of all our exports and imports, of our commer- 

 cial and other transactions with all nations, for several 

 years, including the last. Attention is in\'ited to the 

 fact that the whole world took only $1,374,077 worth 

 of corn, and $70!),074 worth of meal, of this great 

 corn-growing nation during the last fiscal year, ending 

 June 30th, 1853 ; while it exjiorted wheat and flour 

 to the amount of $20,000,000, within a small fraction. 



Notwithstanding our pretty high duty on foreign 

 wheat, Canada wheat-growers sold in the United 

 States 1,297,131 bushels in the last fiscal year, and 

 received for the same, according to custom house re- 

 turns, only $821,596. The returns for the present 

 fiscal year, ending on the fii^st of July, 1854, wiU 

 doubtless show a much larger sale, and at a far bet- 

 ter price. Free trade with Canada would be a- great 

 boon to its farmers, and probably no disadvantage to 

 the much larger agricultural interest of this republic. 

 If Canada were a part of the United States, no one 

 would fear, or complain of free trade therewith. It 



