Address. 13 



what they formerly produced, though during the same period the 

 same crops in England have increased more than fifty per cent. 

 When the lands of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Dela- 

 ware, Maryland, Virginia and Ohio were first put under cultivation, 

 the average yield of wheat per acre was not far from thirty bushels, 

 and crops of forty bushels per acre common. But in 1808, which 

 was an average year for modern times, New York produced but 14 

 bushels per acre, Pennsylvania 12, Massachusetts 15, Vermont 10. 

 Ohio 13, Michigan 12, Wisconsin 13, Illinois 11, Minnesota 15, 

 Iowa 14, and Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky and 

 Tennessee from 5 to 9 bushels per acre. The whole number of bush- 

 els of wheat produced in the United States in 1868 was 221,000,000. 

 the average yield per acre was 12 1-2 bushels. Does this look as if 

 our soil was exhaustless ? as if we could feed the whole world and 

 then have a surplus ? Let us see. Taking our population at 30,- 

 000,000, our Avhole yield of wheat, if it had all been consumed at 

 home, would have given but seven bushels to each inhabitant, which 

 is less than is actually consumed by the people of Ireland. The fact 

 is, the capacity of our country to grow wheat is much overrated, as 

 it respects the quantity of our first-class wheat growing lands, and 

 it does not increase much, for we annually destroy about as much 

 as we reclaim from its natural state, and the enormous aggregate 

 quantity we produce at the present time is owing to the number of 

 acres we contrive to run over, to plow and sow, and not to the in- 

 creased yield per acre. The same facts exist in relation to that most 

 important, and in the aggregate most valuable, of all the crops the 

 soil of the country produces, Indian corn. As a plant it requires 

 nearly the same soil and constituents for growth and nourishment as 

 does wheat. But being a stronger plant with more vital power, it 

 draws food sufficient to grow, from a soil where wheat would fail. 

 Besides, this plant is our special pet, and is encouraged by manuring, 

 while we apply little directly to wheat. The enormous quantity of 

 this grain which annually finds its way from the west to the seaboard 

 markets, is apt to lead a casual observer to infer that the supply is 

 unlimited, but by the hands to produce it, and the market demand. 

 But this is far otherwise ; though the area on which we can produce 

 corn is much more extensive than that of wheat. The yield per aerie 



