THE ILLIISrOIS FA.RMEII. 



343 



commencing near LaSalle, and in south- 

 ern Illinois there will be a heavy crop. 

 But our northern farmers -will not be 

 able to purchase your corn but sparingly. 

 They have felt the loss of crops and poor 

 prices as you have felt and are feeling 

 here. They have been buying British 

 beef and wheat and potatoes in the 

 cloths which come from British looms, 

 while they cannot sell their beef and 

 wheat and potatoes for what they cost 

 them. It is well, however, that there is 

 corn in the State. We shall be able to 

 spare some. With the balance we can 

 feed ourselves and fatten our cattle and 

 hogs. We have always supposed that 

 central Illinois could do well when she 

 had a good crop of corn. That would 

 be the case now, but for that load of 

 debt, which weighs us down to the earth. 

 But we have still hope. Live on the 

 produce of your farms. Have your 

 clothes patched and make them wear a 

 year longer. So soon as can fall back 

 into that state of home industry and 

 domestic economy, from which in an evil 

 hour you departed. Keep a few sheep, 

 as of old. Make all the butter you can. 

 Raise all the chickens you can. Raise 

 all the pigs you can. Make your garden 

 do something for you. Live close, but 

 comfortable — and thank Grod things are 

 no worse. * 



—t- 



The next Wheat Crop. 



Mr. Editor of the Farmer: — The 

 time has again come and is passing for 

 putting in the seed for another crop of 

 wheat. Many will keep on trying to 

 raise wheat, though they have failed to 

 raise a satisfactory crop for the last 

 three years. Some few have noticed 

 the apparent causes of failure and will 

 do all they can to avoid them. If they 

 have sown foul seed, mixed with chess 

 and the seeds of weeds, they will en- 

 deavor to make their wheat clean. A 

 magnifying glass will often show cheat 

 where you do not expect to find it; and 

 every seed of cheat, if the season is not 

 unusually favorable to wheat, will be 

 sure to germinate. A rank growth of 

 wheat may keep it down, but a weak 

 growth will surely give it a chance to 

 grow and spread itself. 



If your wheat has failed because the 

 ground was not properly prepared, you 

 will try to prepare it better. If there 

 are weeds growing on the ground you 

 are to plow, and these are not covered 

 well, and, indeed, if they are, they will 

 have a tendency to make the ground 

 light, and in the winter and spring, 

 wheat on such ground, will be likely to 

 winterkill. The seed ought to be drilled 

 in in such ground, and then the ground 

 should be rolled. The great fault of 

 our soil in winter, when not covered or 

 saturated with water, is its lightness. 

 Common drills will not work in such 



weedy ground; but the new rolling- 

 cutter drill comes to your relief in this 

 case. It will work in the weediest 

 ground and work well. It is made on 

 Rock River, and is an implement that 

 ought to be generally known; for it will 

 drill in all the grains in lands where the 

 cojnmon drill cannot work. 



If you lost your wheat last year by 

 the grounds being saturated or flooded 

 with water, your duty is as plain as can 

 be; you must drain your lands* you must 

 plow your grounds in small lands; you 

 must make deep furrows to carry off the 

 water; you must do it! You must not 

 put off this as men sometimes do re- 

 pentance, until the evil day comes! 



It is of very little use to sow wheat 

 on wet land. This has been done a good 

 deal in this section heretofore. There 

 are ten chances that you will lose your 

 crop to one that you will make a good 

 one on such grounds. Get such lands 

 into meadows as soon as possible. In 

 the east red top succeeds well on such 

 grounds; but there seems to be a preju- 

 dice against it among gome of our farm- 

 ers. It is not yet too late to sow timothy 



on wheat lands, if you will do it. W. 



«•» 



To the Editor of the Illinois Farmer : — 

 Our State and other Fairs are pleasant gath- 

 erings, and doubtless very useful, altogeth- 

 er sucla a stimulant as Agriculture requires, 

 and without which the interest would lan- 

 guish. But there are defects in their inter- 

 nal organization that diminish their useful- 

 ness and will ultimately impair their popu- 

 larity, we mean the defective committee of 

 arrangements for awarding Preminms. The 



committees appointed on the Horse, Cattle, 

 Sheep and Swine departments if they neglect 

 to attend, can be filled by competitors, men 

 on the spot generally at little notice, as these 

 are popular and evidently esteemed honora- 

 ry, but when we come to the implements, 

 the mechanics, the fine arts, household &c., 

 there is a sad falling away of committee men, 

 and an equally sad ability to supply their 

 places, so much so that many important arti- 

 cles are frequently passed over without any 

 notice at all. An invention that may have 

 cost wearisome and anxious months is neg- 

 lected altogether or slurred over by some 

 flippant committee man appointed at the 

 eleventh hour, who, to begin with, knows 

 nothing of the matter in liand, has no sym- 

 pathy or interest in it, cannot be expected to 



have, has his mind doubtless fixed upon his 



route home, and speedy escape from the 

 grounds when his hour is passed. If then 

 the stock department at our Fairs will take 

 care of itself should not extra attention by 

 the Executive Board be given to these neg- 

 lected departments, especially thatofmechan- 

 ics and the miscellaneous supplement connec- 

 ted therewith, frequently requiring the best 

 knowledge of the existing condition and 

 prospective wants of agriculture. To get 

 the original appointed committee men to serve 

 would it not be as well to pay them — this 

 seeius a sordid view — but nevertheless it has 

 great force, and would not be bad policy as 

 appears to us for it is indulging a liberality 



in the house of its friends that would more 

 than compensate for any amounts paid ont. 

 We deem it the rankest ingratitude and neg- 

 lect that one of our fellow citizens in the 

 least of his efforts to ameliorate the condition 

 of labor, should find himself at the mercy of 

 a chance committee or no committee at all to 

 recorder investigate what he has done. Theles 

 noted exhibitions are those that require cer- 

 tainly a corresponding share of the Society's 

 solicitude, and if they do not get it will in 

 the end fall from beneath it its best support. 

 We think the Miscellaneous Department of 

 each Class might be simplefied, might be 

 brought under one committee, instead of half 

 a dozen to confuse and bewilder the whole 

 examination, and let it be a strong and good 

 one, invested with considerable discretionary 

 power to settle then and there whatever may 

 come before them. The quantity of matter 

 accumulating at our Fairs in the Mechanical 

 and Implement Department, is completely 

 overwhelming, and we looked upon Dr. Kyle 

 the Superintendent under this head at both 

 the State and National Fairs, as the most of 

 a Martyr we had met with for a long time, 

 and all in consequence of the weak manner by 

 which he was sustained by the committees. 



B. 



From the Cbtjago PresB and T. ibune: 



The Fairbanks Standard Scales. — 

 Both in the State Fair at Freeport, and at the 

 National Fair in this city, the Fairbank 

 Standard Scales maintained their prestige 

 won in over a quarter of a century of exper- 

 ience, and bore away all the prizes where 

 they were competitors. Messrs. Fairbanks 

 & (Jreenleaf, from their establishment in 

 Bureh's building, on the corner of Lake 

 street and Wabash avenue, gave to their de- 

 partment at these Fairs an attraction whieh 



drew crowds of visitors, curious to look 



through the multiform list of weighing ap- 

 pliances, from railroad track scales to the 

 letter balances, all the product of the cele- 

 brated St. Johnsbury Works and their branch 

 New York manufactory. In all cases they 

 won the blue ribbon and medals to match, 

 and after tests, applied much more rigidly 

 and intelligently than has become too com- 

 mon in these exhibitions. 



There is one point in this which all man- 

 ufacturers, of every grade, will do well to 

 profit by. It is the wisdom of the Messrs. 

 Fairbanks in ''keeping up their standard." 

 There has been with them no such thing as 

 falling back on a reputation already made. 

 Every scale must bear the identical accuracy 

 of its predecessor, and not palm off seeming 

 merits on the strength of credit previously 

 gained. Manufacturers are too prone to 

 lower their mark wlien success has given 

 them the temptation to indolence and inat- 

 tention. For thi.s reason blue ribbons and 

 first premiums follow asuccess of twenty-five 

 years, mean something more than an empty 

 formality, to-wit : that the skill which won 

 still guards a splendid reputation. 

 «•» — ■ 



fn a late letter to the London Times, Mr. 

 James A. Lockwood says that the raising of 

 the sunken fleet at Sehastopol was proceeding 

 saoces3fully; about fourteen ships only re- 

 mf^ined to be ra'sed. That portion of the fleet 

 Bunk at the entrance of the harbor will b« 

 blown up. 



