Notes and Gleanings. 377 



pass, and the virgin soils of California shall be despoiled of their fatness, and 

 their yield shall be reduced to ten or twelve bushels per acre, where will the 

 spoiler go for new wheat-fields to ruin ? 



The averages for October appear to show a decrease in production in Maine, 

 New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, 

 South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas ; the latter having only half a 

 crop. The other States indicate an increase : in most of those east of the Missis- 

 sippi, very slight ; in Minnesota, thirteen per cent ; in Iowa, six ; in Missouri, 

 eight; in Nebraska, thirteen; in Kansas, twenty-three; and in California, 

 twenty five pjer cent. 



Many places in different parts of the country, especially in Maryland and 

 Wisconsin, report a disappointment in the yield of grain in threshing. The 

 disappointment, however, is sometimes in the other direction. 



Oats. — This crop is light in the Eastern, Middle, and Southern Atlantic States; 

 is not a full average in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. In the other States, 

 the product is above the average ; the largest increase being twenty-one per cent 

 in Nebraska. In Wisconsin, the deficiency is nine per cent. Our Green-County 

 correspondent says, " The oat-crop of this vicinity has been considered almost 

 a certainty ; but, owing to very hot weather just as the oats were beginning to 

 fill, the crop was materially injured. Fields that promised from forty to seventy- 

 five bushels per acre, when harvested actually produced from twenty to thirty. 

 From many inquiries, I have heard of but one field producing over thirty bushels 

 per acre. As a whole, the crop has been quite as large as that of last year." 



Rye, in most of the States, is marked by figures very similar to those which 

 show the relative product of oats. 



Barley. — The barley-crop is somewhat deficient in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 

 Wisconsin, and in most of the Atlantic States. It will scarcely make so large 

 an aggregate in bushels as last year. 



Corn. — Considerable injury from frost is reported in Northern Indiana, Illi- 

 nois, Iowa, and more northern latitudes. In some portions of Iowa, an estimate 

 of two-fifths of soft corn is made. From Southern Indiana, Southern Ohio, 

 West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, come complaints of immaturity in consequence 

 of wet weather ; and a few accounts of injury from drought are received. No 

 general or very severe droughts have been reported. The high temperature of 

 July was favorable to the growth of corn ; but the unusual coolness of tlie later 

 summer gave a sudden and injurious check at the critical period of earing, re- 

 sulting in late ripening, smut, and other evidences of abnormal conditions. Yet 

 the acreage is undeniably large in most of the States, and nowhere is there very 

 serious failure. The total product will be, therefore, not what was hoped in the 

 early season, or what is needed for a country with a rapidly-increasing popula- 

 tion, but a somewhat larger quantity than last year, which was a season pecu 

 liarly adverse to corn-production. A good crop should exceed a thousand mil 

 lions of bushels. Last year's production was little more than three-fourths ot 

 that quantity ; and the present, though not yet fully harvested, and the material 

 for a fnal estimate returned, does not promise to reach that figure by ten or 

 fifteen per cent. 



VOL IV. 48 



