7'. — ry^?^it^-y^&'yy;gro? tyjyftJ:yj;' '*^'« 



THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



283 



a cornstalk measuring twenty-five feet 

 in height ; a pumpkin weighing two hun- 

 dred and sixty-seven pounds; on one 

 vine there grew four pumpkins weighing 

 eight hundred pounds. 



The Report laments that the agricul- 

 tural resources of the country cannot be 

 brought out for want of a staid and steady 

 agricultural population. Few men en- 

 gage in agriculture as a permanent em- 

 ployment. The agricultural resources 

 of a country cannot be well developed 



with such a population. 



»t 



Hungarian Grass, 



But little of this grass (or Millet) was 

 sown in this section of country until last 

 year. Such was the demand for the 

 seed last spring, that unscrupulous men 

 put into market the seed of the common 

 Italian Millet for the Hungarian. We 

 are inclined to believe that in every case 

 where there was dissatisfaction with the 

 crop, it was where, the wrong variety 

 of Millet had been sown. We have had 

 the assurance of many farmers that the 

 Hungarian Millet came up entirely to 

 their expectations on the amount of crop 

 produced and in its excellence of food 

 for stock. Mr. A. E. Constant, a well 

 known farmer of this county, and at 

 present, a resident of this city, raised a 

 small field of Hungarian Millet last year. 

 He said his horses lived on it while it 

 lasted last winter, and did quite as well 

 as they would have done on the best oats- 

 and he had as lief have the Hungarian 

 Grass as oats for Stock. 



Our farmers, who cultivated the crop 

 last season — supposing that seed would 

 be abundant the present spring — fed 

 their seed out to stock; which is a great 

 misfortune; for, such is the demand for 

 seed this spring, that the great markets 

 have been cleared of it. There was no 

 seed for sale at Chicago a few days ago, 

 and in small lots, at St. Louis, it has 



been readily sold at §3 per bushel. 



<•» ~ 



Large Yield of Wool. — The impor- 

 ted Cotswold buck, owned by Mr. Mar- 

 tin Hutchinson, of Bourbon, was shear- 

 ed on the 16th of April last, and produ- 

 ced 19 J pounds of dry wool. The same 

 animal on the 19th of May, 1858, yield- 

 ed 19 pounds of dry wool. This splen- 

 did animal was imported by a company 

 in Springfield, Illinois, from whom Mr. 

 Hutchison purchased him at a high 

 price. 



Cotton Growing in Central Illinois. 



A gentleman of Mississippi has sent the 

 editor of this paper, and B. F. Johnson, 

 Esq., of Urbana, a package of cotton seed, 

 for distribution among those who wish to 

 make experiments in cotton growing in cen- 

 tral Illinois. Mr. Johnson, in a communica- 

 tion to the editor of this paper, thus speaks 

 of the prospect : 



" I was gratified at last to get a sight of a 

 specimen of that cotton seed. Send along 

 that bag as soon as may be. I wish to plant 

 a few rows, and will distribute the balance — 

 or more properly, the remainder. 



i' 1 am not disposed to think there is any 

 thing more than a chance — a slight one — 

 that cotton can be profitably grown with us 

 on the prairie; but the value of such a suc- 

 cess would be incalculable. There are 

 several facts that are worth remembering in 

 this connection. It is true that cotton will 

 grow in this latitude, but the season is too 

 short. It cannot be profitably raised on ac- 

 count of our early frosts. Now, were we to 

 go to Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia or 

 South Carolina, and import our seed corn, at 

 first we should be likely to fail of a crop ; 

 yet Zea Mays is profitably grown on the 

 45 ° , in New England, and the Ohio Dent 

 corn ripens in the same parallel in Minneso- 

 ta. The corn of South Carolina and that of 

 Canada are one and the same thing, and 

 though the Grasses are much wider spread 

 than the Malvacea, still I don't see why care 

 and cultivation cannot crowd the cotton 

 growth aud bloom into the four or five 

 months of our season, as it has done the 

 growth of corn in the three months of a 

 northern summer. Corn in South Carolina 

 is planted in March or April, and ripens in 

 October, standing seven or eight months on 

 the ground. Here it is planted in May and 

 ripens in October, standing say five or six 

 months on the ground. Can't the same 

 adaptation to climate be done with cotton ? 

 And since the mean temperature on our 

 prairies is several degrees higher than in lat- 

 itude 80 "^ or 35 '^ , is there not a reasonable 

 hope of success ? What seems to be wanted 

 is that experiments should be made and seed 

 carefully selected so that in process of time 

 a northern cotton could be grown as readily 

 as a northern corn. The high price of labor 

 here would at this time disable us from com- 

 peting with the south, yet were we to suc- 

 ceed in raising cotton, there is enough me- 

 chanical skill, especially when stimula- 

 ted by such a pressure to solve the problem 

 of gathering cotton by machinery.'' 



We may add that the castor bean plant 

 came from the tropics, and is there a tree, 

 continuing to produce for many years. It 

 has been gradually taken to the north, until 

 it has become an annual plant in Illinois, the 

 seed being planted, and the plant producing 

 perfect seed within ^he time that is required 

 for maturing the corn crop. The habits of 

 other tropical plants have been changed in 

 the same manner. Cotton trees from which 

 cotton is annually taken, are found inYucatan. 



We cannot say it is the same variety of our 

 common cotton plant. 



In regard, however, to the growing of cot- 

 ton in central Illinois, we can give a few 

 facts that we confess (learned a few days 

 ago) surprised us. The late Reuben Han- 

 ison, with his family, were among the earli- 

 est settlers of Sangamon county. They came 

 here in 1822, and settled on Eichland Creek. 

 The settlers of that day in that locality, were 

 principally from the Carolinas,Virginia,Ken- 

 tucky and Tennessee. They grew cotton 

 successfully, and as a matter of necessity, for 

 cotton cloths were not then to be obtained, 

 as they are now. Each family had a cotton- 

 patch; it ripened well, maturing the seeds. 

 The cotton was gathered and placed in sheds 

 for that purpose, until a convenient time for 

 divesting it of its seeds. This was done by 

 "ginning it." There were two cotton gins 

 in the neighborhood — one on Richland and 

 the other on Rock Creek. Our informant 

 says that cotton was thus grown for many 

 years, gathered, ginned, carded, spun and 

 wove into cloth for several years — ^he thinks 

 until about 1830. The seasons then appa- 

 rently changed — became wetter and shorter 

 than they had previously been. At all 

 events, the crop failed several times — stores 

 were established, where cotton domestics 

 could be had, and the culture of the cotton 

 crop ceased in Sangamon. We might re- 

 mark here that corn failed also in 1830, and, 

 we believe, to some extent in 1831. These 

 seasons were wet, and continued to be wet 

 and warm very late in the season — the corn 

 keeping green and not maturing. In the 

 spring of 1832 seed corn had to be brought 

 from Kentucky and Tennessee, and sold at 

 almost fabulous prices. Wheat flour was 

 also brought in considerable quantities from 

 Cincinnati to Beardstown,from whence it was 

 hauled into the country on wagons. 



The attempt to cultivate the cotton plant 

 in our region is not without hope of success. 

 It has been successfully cultivated here, and 

 may be again. The first great curiosity we 

 met with in this State, was in 1829, when 

 we saw a lady on the "Turkey Hill Farm," 

 in St. Clair county, gathering cotton from 

 the plants. She said " the cotton was fine, 

 as good as they raised in Carolina, and all 

 she wanted was a gin to gin it." 

 *»» 



1^=A notorious Miss of the pave 



tripped into the Police Office yesterday 

 — (if she could trip with her extensions 

 at least fifteen feet in circumference), 

 and very modestly remarked that "she 

 did not like to be there but supposed 

 she must be." She was charged with 

 keeping a cage of cyprians. Her case 

 was put ofi". 



