122 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[ August, 



as that results in a iirofit to the miller, as may 

 be seen from the following : 

 2>4 bushels wheat wciffh - - - - 135 lbs. 

 2}4 " " make flour - - 100 lbs. 



leaving of bran, ship stuff, etc., - - - 35 lbs. 

 and worth at the towest calculation one cent 

 per pound, leaving about fifteen per cent, for 

 his profit on every hundred pounds of Hour he 

 makes. 



A consumer can easily find out what he 

 really ought to pay for flour. As two and a 

 quarter bushels of wheat are required to make 

 one hundred poun<ls of fine fiour, let him 

 ascertain the current price of wheat, and the 

 cost of two and a quarter bushels of wlieat 

 should also be tlie cost of tlie fiour, the offal 

 in the shape of bran and middlings being a 

 fair profit to the miller. When wheat is one 

 dollar per busliel two dollars and a quarter 

 are a fair price for a hundred weight of floin-. 



But it is not the millers only who seem to 

 be having a pretty nice tiling of this flour 

 business. The bakers also ought to prosper, 

 as the following facts will show. A barrel of 

 flour will make 280 pounds of dough, and this 

 in turn will make 240 pounds of bread : 

 240 lbs. at 5 cents per lb., - - - - ({12.00 

 from which must be deducted the following 

 expenses : 



Barrel of flour, ---... $5.00 

 Cost of makiog into bread, - - - - 1..50 



or a total expense on each barrel of - - $7.00 

 leaving the baker a net profit of five dollars 

 per barrel. When a baker works up as many 

 as five barrels of flour per day, and some we 

 believe do double that, they have a very snug 

 thing of it. Forty-two per cent, may be re- 

 garded as a living profit in these days. Some- 

 thing more nmst be allowed for incidental ex- 

 penses, such as hauling the bread around, but 

 even then it pays handsomely. — JHew Era. 



^ — ^ 



FORESTS AND CULTIVATION. 



It is a well settled fact that forests produce 

 moisture, and shade assists in enriching the 

 soil, fitting it for the production of crops for 

 the sustenance of man and beast. Take, for 

 instance, Egypt, portions of Persia, and the 

 valley of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, in 

 Asiatic Turkey. The very site of the famous 

 Garden of Eden is now nothing but barren 

 sands, looking as if no green thing ever ex- 

 isted there. The wholesale destruction of 

 forests and trees have but one result, to make 

 land sterile and unproductive, which will 

 gradually drive away population until whole 

 regions are abandoned and given up to the 

 ravages of time. This consummation is in 

 many large expanses of territory, to be seen in 

 the older continents of Asia and Africa, and 

 will overwhelm any land denuded of forests, 

 in the course of time. It is true this may 

 happen only after a hundred or a thousand 

 years, but it will come inevitably where trees 

 are constantly destroyed and none planted to 

 take their place. 



There was no greater mistake than to cut 

 down the plots of woods to be formerly found 

 upon almost every iarm, and where fruit and 

 shade trees die to allow their places to remain 

 unrestored. Frequently in the jiurchase of a 

 farm the first thing dcjne to enable the owner 

 to make the second payment was to cut down 

 one-half, sometimes all, the wood and sell it. 

 No more fatal thing could be done. It is, as 

 it were, taking the life-blood out of the land. 

 Then, too, when urged to set out forest trees 

 the argument is that they will not come into 

 use during the life of the owner, and he would 

 be doing it only for future owners. These 

 people will ncjt remember that somebody had 

 done it for them. Oiu' advice is, therefore, to 

 keep u]) the forests to at least one-tenth of the 

 aggregate land, and it will not only repay you 

 in posts and rails and firewood from dying 

 trees, which would have to be removed, but 

 will add to the fertility of the whole land in 

 moisture, by attracting rains. 



In many sections of the West and South- 

 west, devoid of timber, and known as prai- 

 ries, cultivation is successful only by irriga- 



tion. There are no trees, owing to the great 

 fires which have destroyed them. In places, 

 however — and we are pleased to say they are 

 annually increasing — forests are being planted. 

 Several of the States have offered liljeral 

 premiums to encourage forest-planting, and 

 millions upon millions of trees are now grow- 

 ing, where only a few years ago scarcely a 

 tree was to be seen. It is the interest of great 

 railroad companies to plant trees along their 

 lines, and thus raise enough timber to supjily 

 their own enormous wants for ties, and lie- 

 sides to provide <i grateful shade for their 

 passenger trains. There are some varieties of 

 \vood that grow rapidly and of an enduring 

 nature, as the catalpa, cotton wood, &c., and 

 it is upon these mainly that the country must 

 rely f(.)r their future supply of timber. 



15ut it must be liorne in mind that farmers, 

 great and small, should join, at this crisis, in 

 producing their share of timber-trees, as the 

 clierry, the walnut, chestnut, &c. These 

 small patches of forest should be found on 

 every farm, and as they are countless in num- 

 bers, the aggregate would have a most im- 

 portant influence upon the general result 

 which we have in view. 



Farmers and land-owners should banish 

 from their minds the idea that they may not 

 live to enjoy the profit of this tree-planting ; 

 they probably will, as from twenty to thirty 

 years may realize the most liberal hopes of 

 success ; at least it will add greatly to the 

 value of the farm from the very facts we have 

 named. In support of this there is not a farm 

 nowadays offered for sale in which the wood- 

 land, if any, is not particularly referred to, as 

 well as any " never-failing spring " or stream 

 upon the premises. 



LANCASTER COUNTY TOBACCO. 



We take the following communication from 



the annual report of the Chief of the Ijureau 



of Statistics, recently published at Ilarrisbin-g: 



1615 Summer St., PniLADELPiiiA, ) 



December 1, 1S77. j 



W. If ayes Gricr, Esq.^ Bureau of Statistics, 



Department Internul Affairs, Harrishurg, 



Pennsylvania : 



Dear Sik : In compliance with request con- 

 tained in your favor of 12th instant, the fol- 

 lowing statement shows how many cases of 

 tobacco have been raised in Lancaster county 

 since ISGO, including a careful estimate of crop 

 for this year. The area planted at present 

 will be about the same as last year (1876), but 

 a feeling exists among growers of giving the 

 crop more attention, and growing a better 

 article ; but the result is expected to show at 

 least an increase of some 20,000 cases over 

 and above the crop of 1876. In the year 18(J0, 

 15,000 cases were packed, from tobacco grown 

 exclusively within the countj', increasing in 

 following year 5,000, making 2,000 for the 

 year ; in 1862 the number packed amounted 

 to 2.'i,000, still an increase ; but the crop of 

 1863, amounting to 30,000 cases, checked 

 somewhat the growth, and the crop fell off 

 during the next seven years. The number of 

 cases packed each year being : 1864, 20,0(XI ; 

 1865, 12,000 ; 1866, 7,000 ; 1867, 2,500 ; 1868, 

 5,500; 1S69, increased to 9,000; 1870, in- 

 creased still more, to 16,580 ; in 1871, crop of 

 1870 was nearly doubled, being 31,230 cases ; 

 in 1872, 34,010 ; in 1873, fell off 25,000 ; in- 

 creasing some 5,000 in 1874 ; in 1875, the crop 

 of that year went ahead some 10,000 cases 

 over the preceding year ; in 1876, 35,000 cases 

 were packed ; and a very careful estimate, 

 from reports of all the tobacco growing dis- 

 tricts, will l)ring the crop of this year (1S77) 

 up to 37,000 cases, which will fall short Init 

 3,000 cases of the highest amount readied 

 since 1860, the year 1875 having grown 40,(J00 

 cases. You have, therefore, for the eighteen 

 years, 302,820 eases of tobacco, weighing, say 

 three hundred and sixty pounds tobaecc^ each, 

 making 141,41.">,200 pounds. Those who 

 are versed in the prices I'ealized per ])ound 

 during the.se years, from 1860 to present time, 

 can see how much, in money value, has been 

 the tobacco growing business of the county. 



Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, is acknow- 



ledged, generally, to be the " banner " tobacco 

 district of the United States. No other equal 

 area of land produces as many pounds per 

 acre, of a standard, excellent quality, com- 

 manding the highest possible prices for native 

 grades of any grown in this country, and 

 bringing a revenue to the producers larger 

 than that of any tobacco district in America. 

 The value of last year's eroji, being estimated 

 by what has been sold and that whicli remains 

 (ju hand, deducting considerably for reduced 

 lirices, aggregates (|;2, 500,000) two and a half 

 millions of dollars. 



Another marked characteristic of the Lan- 

 caster county tobacco, as a crop, is the large 

 amount which is yielded per acre. Lancas- 

 terians are synonymous with good farmers, 

 and in this crop they seem to have "set" 

 themselves to outstrip the world. Each one 

 seems to vie with his neighbor in a friendly 

 competition as to which can produce the 

 greatest yield per acre. Of the crop of 1S72 

 (the writer, speaking from personal know- 

 ledge of the amount produced, having visited 

 every tobacco growing township), forty-three 

 townships had 6,802 acres planted out, the 

 area being somewhat in a circle, the greater 

 number of acres being cultivated in the centre 

 of the circle. 



Of the forty-three townships, fifteen grew 

 from one to fifty acres each, nine grew from 

 fifty to one hundred acres each, seventeen 

 grew from one hundred to five hundred acres 

 each, one grew one thousand acres, and one 

 township. Manor, had over one thousand two 

 hundred acres planted out, thus showing that 

 "Manor " township is to the tobacco growing 

 district of Lancaster county what Lancaster 

 county is to the largest tobacco district of 

 America. The average number of pounds 

 yielded per acre being one thousand eight 

 hundred. 



In agricultural interests, generally, the 

 farmers of Lancaster county come as near 

 \)erfection, in their skillful manipulation of 

 the soil, as any community of the kind in 

 this country, expending their labor in the 

 most economical and intelligent manner pos- 

 sible, so as to insure luci'ative retiuiis. 



Hoping the above will be satisfactory, I re- 

 main, sir, your obedient servant, Williard T. 

 Block. 



SUGAR BEETS. 



In reply to "Bleizucker's" communication 

 of April 26, 1 will say the difference in mak- 

 ing sugar from beets and from maple sap is, 

 that the juice has to be extracted from the 

 beets ; this does not require more costly ma- 

 chinery than the cider press and grater — that 

 made by the Boomer and Boscher Press 

 Company, Syracuse, N. Y., (I send you one 

 of their circulars, giving plan and cost of 

 building, press, grater, elevators, engine and 

 boiler, tanks, pumps, etc., the whole cost of 

 which is $2,360,) has the capacity, with the 

 labor of two men, of grating and pressuig 725 

 bushels of beets per "day of ten hours, and 

 yields 5,262 gallons of juice. The press and 

 grater alone costs $510, and requires less than 

 six-horse power to run them. The best juice 

 is boiled down the same as maple sap, sorghum, 

 t)r cane juice, and requires no more labor or 

 skill, anil can be done as economically on theJ 

 above quantity as on a large amount. Itl 

 needs no costly machinery, such as "centrifu-f 

 gals, hydraulic presses, vacu\mi pans, orliltra-j 

 tration through bone coal, etc." These and 

 other requisites are all needed in the rcjining,^ 

 but not in the manufacture of sugar ; they are 

 separate liranclies of business, but sometimes! 

 lioth are cariied on by the same person. The! 

 sugar refineries in this country inii>ort the! 

 brown sugar and refine it. They would, witli-J 

 out question, as readily buy the brown sugar! 

 made here as to import it ; and, refineriesl 

 lieing already established, it is better to send! 

 the brown sugar (what is not consumed inl 

 that form) to the refineries that already havel 

 the necessary machinery and skilled labor tol 

 run them than to start new ones ; it would bel 

 a question of cost of freight against the in-l 

 terest on capital invested in refinery. At! 



