292 



THE ILLINOIS F^HMER. 



fruit growers, I tender my lasting wish for 

 their success and prosperity ; and to you, my 

 much esteemed friend, S. Francis, I send 

 my cordial greetings. 



DAVID NEW SOM. 



Wheat! 



Editor of the Farmer: — I recollect, when 

 three years ago you cautioned our farmers 

 against depending upon a wheat crop, in San- 

 gamon county, that you was often censured. 

 "VVe have tried the crop three times more, 

 and if there has not been a uniform failure, 

 it has come very near to it. I believe that 

 wheat can be raised here under favorable 

 circumstances — when the ground is new — 

 when the land is rolling, so that tbe water 

 can run off — the wheat well put in and the 

 winter and spring favorable. In the last 

 twenty years I have seen many noble fields of 

 wheat in Sangamon ; and I have seen years 

 when farmers have lost the use of their land, 

 lost the use of their labor, and their seed, in 

 endeavoring to raise wheat. This has been 

 so often the case, that it has become a prov 

 erb with me, that a farmer who sows wheat 

 for ten years will usually fail and lose his 

 farm. 



Now is a good time to think of this mat- 

 ter seriously. We have not had a crop this 

 year. We might have done better had we 

 chosen to prepare the grounds well. It is 

 folly to expect a crop of wheat here, on old 

 ground, unless it is well prepared, the seed 

 put in well and the ground drained. 



Brother farmers, we must give our atten- 

 tion to other branches of farming. Central 

 Illinois is a stock country, and stock pays 

 all the time. Yours, &;c., K.. C. P. 



Cfainese Cane for Stock. 



Mr. Editor : — An attentive examination 

 of several leading agricultural papers last 

 winter and spring, has satisfied me that the 

 Chinese Sugar Cane, sown broadcast, may be 

 mowed at least twice in the season, and the 

 product be used as a most valuable food for 

 stock. I am led to believe that for this pur- 

 pose it will prove a more valuable article for 

 cultivation than Hungarian millet. 



The land should be well prepared for this 

 crop; ploughed deep and well, and if the 

 Beed is drilled in, it will answer a good pur- 

 pose, and if sowed broadcast it ought to be 

 ploughed in, or harrowed in well, and if the 

 ground is rolled afterwards, the better. 



When the plant is up three or four feet, 

 it should be cut and dried and put away for 

 winter. In a few weeks there will be anoth- 

 er crop from the same plants, which should 

 be cut and dried and housed in the same 

 way. 



The Cane, too, may be grown to its full 

 size, cut, placed away in the fall and can be 

 fed to hogs, horses and cattle. If cut up in 

 a straw cutter, it will be better feed. Cattle 

 having no upper teeth, find difficulty in eat- 

 ing the hard stalks. The cane possesses fine 

 fattening qualities. This is the concurring tes- 

 timony of all who have made the experiment 

 of using the cane for fodder. 



I am aware of the great popularity of the 

 Hungarian grass, but I believe the cane can 

 be made a more profitable article for feeding 

 out to stock. M. 



DitchiDg. 



Editor of the Farmer : — I have been 

 one of your patrons for many years, 

 and probably shall continue to be so, as 

 long as I have any use for papers. I 

 recollect, two years ago, you remonstra- 

 ted against farmers of Central Illinois 

 making the raising of wheat their main 

 crop of dependence. You said that the 

 history of the wheat crops in Central 

 Illinois sbowed that it was not a crop to 

 be relied on, and that (I recollect the 

 expression) that "if a man had a farm 

 given to him, with five thousand dol- 

 lars in cash, and was to make the raising 

 of wheat his sole reliance, he would be 

 broken up in fifteen years." We lost 

 two crops before this year, and now we 

 have not half a crop. It seems to me 

 that these failures ought to open our 

 eyes to the necessity of abandoning the 

 raising of wheat as a staple crop, or to 

 some new mode of cultivating wheat. — 

 What is the fact ? Wheat has been 

 raised in Sangamon County for thirty- 

 five years, and at this time our farmers 

 do not understand how to grow wheat 

 with any tolerable certainty of a crop. 



Does not this appear strange to you ? 

 It does to me. Can we not learn any- 

 thing by failures ? Do we know the 

 cause ? Cannot we ascertain ? Have 

 not enough experiments been made to 

 build a theory of some certainty ? 



When the early settlers came to this 

 county they made as a general fact (so I 

 learn,) good crops of wheat. They se- 

 lected rolling ground, or dry grounds 

 for their fields, from which water would 

 run off. The land was new. It pos- 

 sessed qualities which even now, newly 

 broken up land, on rolling grounds se- 

 cure, nine times out of ten, good crops 

 of this grain. But our farmers have 

 exhausted those qualities of our virgin 

 soil on rolling lands which make wheat, 

 and these lands will not produce well 

 unless they are well prepared for the 

 crop. A great portion of the country is 

 made up of level lands — subject to being 

 saturated with water and to remain so, 

 summer and winter, as long as we have 

 heavy and unusual rains. These lands 

 cannot be relied on for a crop of wheat 

 in this condition. To put in -wheat up- 

 on them, a farmer runs about the same 

 chance of getting a crop that he would 

 of drawing a high prize in a lottery. — 

 The season may be favorable; it may be 

 unusually dry, so that the wheat will 

 not be drowned ; snow may cover the 

 ground in the winter, so that it will 

 not winter kill; but where these favora- 

 ble circumstances occur once, unfavora- 

 ble circumstances are likely to occur 

 nine times. Hence I regard it as cer- 

 tain, that wheat is not to be a profitable 

 crop for Central Illinois at this time or 

 at any future time, unless under the 

 following condition of things : 



Ist. That the land shall be throrough- 

 ly drained. Surface draining will an- 

 swer a tolerable purpose, if drains are 

 suflBciently near to carry off" the water 

 promptly as it falls. Better than this, 

 if the land is thoroughly underdrained. 



2d. That the ground shall be in 

 good order; fallowed early in summer, 

 so that all the early growth of Aveeds 

 shall be killed and thoroughly rotted be- 

 fore plowing in the fall. The ground to 

 be plowed in the fall and the seed to be 

 well drilled in the ground. 



3d. The seed to be the best, and to 

 be entirely free from chess, or the seeds 

 of other noxious plants. This cultiva- 

 tion may secure good wheat in Central 

 Illinois, and without such cultivation, it 

 will ever be an uncertain crop. 



J. S. F. 



<•• 



Ditcbing. 

 3fr. Editor : — I have tried a little 

 mole ditching on my farm. It works to 

 a charm. I tried it on a piece of land 

 which was wet and cold and swampy, 

 and it is now in fine order as any land 

 any where. I don't pretend to under- 

 stand the philosophy of this thing; but 

 I know it works like a charm upon the 

 land. And this cold land, now the 

 best on my farm by means of the mole 

 ditching, furnishes me with an ample 

 supply of stock water. I want you 

 should wri:e about this plan of ditching 

 and talk about it, and when you come 

 into my neighborhood, come and see me 

 and I will show you the good effects of 

 ditching. I am beginning to lose some 

 of my old fogy notions, and you will, 

 too, if you have any, when you see land 

 where the mole plow has been made to 

 work. 



JiMTOwN, June 17. R. 



.«» 



The Chess (iuestion. 



3Ir. Editor : — Some of my brother 

 farmers complain of their wheat turning 

 to chess. On a part of my wheat field 

 I sowed last fall wheat, in which there 

 was no chess, and there I have no chess. 

 In another part of the field, I sowed 

 wheat which I was not particular to 

 clean, and there I have chess. 



I shall be particular to clean my 



wheat hereafter. W. 



••• 



The Flora] Exhibition at Decatur. 

 Editor of the Farmer: — I was glad to 

 see you at our first Floral Exhibition in 

 this city. I will venture to say, that for 

 a first eff'ort, it was a very successful one. 

 We were willing to copy from our sister 

 city of Springfield, and to get up on 

 our own account a duplicate of what we 

 deem one of her most interesting insti- 

 tutions. It was the work of a few of 

 our citizens, only contemplated a few 

 days, but they went into the work with 

 a will that accomplished all that you 

 saw. 



^^''-^Ki.'" w.^''t«*". -, ; 



