1864. 



THE ILLINOIS EAKMER. 



43 



the current year, and half that of the next, we look 

 hopefully forward to prosperous times for the or- 

 chardist, and happy ones for the coHsumer, who 

 will find them more abundant than ever. In the 

 mean time, the apple, the cherry, the plum, the 

 grape and the small fruits will increase in volume 

 in our markets and on the tables of the farmer. 



In a continental climate like this, we must expect 

 just such visitations of cold as those of '55, '56, and 

 '64. But as the value of shelter is better under- 

 stood, we shall to some extent be enabled to guard 

 against its severity. Our shelter belts of silver 

 maple are but five to six years old, yet they Lave 

 been uf no inconsiderable advantage in this cold 

 ordeal through which we have passed. 



COTTON AT COBDEN. 



The field culture of cotton in the south part of 

 the State is no longer an experiment but a fixed 

 fact, and must hereafter claim a place .among the 

 the staple products of the farm. 



Last season Major S Stewart had .thirty eight 

 acres that yielded six hundred pounds of seed cot- 

 ton to the acre, and T J McOlure forty acres, yield- 

 ing the same amount. The growth was rampant, 

 and would have turned that amount of clean cotton 

 had it not been for the early frost. Here was two 

 hundred pounds of clean cotton to the acre worth, 

 at fifteen cents a pound in the seed, niuty dollars 

 an acre. 



These parties now think that with an improved 

 two-horse sulky cultivator they can grow cotton at 

 about half the cost of last year, and are to plant a 

 much larger crop. These crops are grown on the 

 Mississippi bottom near the mouth of Clear Creek. 



Mr. M. demons, at Cobden, has a steam gin. 

 The whole cost of engine, gin, press and buildings 

 was thirteen hundred dollars. He has ginned four- 

 teen thousand pounds and has not quite half of the 

 crop grown in the neighborhood ginned. As 

 twelve hundred pounds of seed cotton makes a bale 

 of four hundred pounds, he will make some twenty- 

 four bales. He has paid for this cotton fifteen to 

 sixteen cents a pound in the seed, or an aggregate 

 of $4,200. It has been reported that the cn)p was 

 such a failure that no further attempt would be 

 made to grow it. The frost of the 30th August 

 killed all in the valleys, and that of the 18th Sep- 

 tember on the hills. The heavy rains of June and 

 the subsequent drouth had retarded the growth 

 80 that the early frost found it in a bad condition! 

 and it is estimated that only one-fourth to one- 

 sixth of the crop as grown was saved, many of the 

 best grown fields having been entirely ruined. At 

 one time it was supposed that no cotton would be 

 ginned at this point, but in this case the croakers 

 must give place to stubborn facts. 



The bulk of the crop has been grown in small 

 patches of one, two and three acres. It is safe to 

 estemate that in an ordinary season from four to 

 six times the amount would have been produced. 

 The present cost of ginning is two cents a pound. 

 In the above estimate uo allowance is made for the 

 cotton reserved for domestic use, of which almost 

 each family have more or less ginned. At the gin 

 we found several of these grists for the family lin- 

 My and for comforts. Mr. Clemens says that more 

 than double the number of acres will be planted 

 ■ext year. 



Seed is sold to planters at twenty cents a bush- 

 el, against two to three dollars a bushel last year. 



At Jonesboro, seven miles south, is another ^n 

 that has done a much larger buisnesa, as has been 

 the case at Dongola. 



Notwithstanding the adverse circumstances at- 

 tending the first attempt at the field culture of cot- 

 ton, we think it will take rank with the most profit- 

 able crops. In this neighborhood the farms are 

 small, running from twenty to fifty acres, and this 

 so hilly and so full of rocks and stumps that our 

 best farm implements cannot be used ; and the old 

 coulter or bull tongue plow is yet in use. But there 

 is a greater draw back in the general ignorance of 

 the farmers, who are, with the exception of the 

 fruit growers and traders, mostly from Tennessee 

 and Kentucky. School houses and agricultural 

 journals are alike almost unknown. 



The next half a dozen years will regenerate the 

 dark spots along the grand chain, in proof of which, 

 houses with the chimneys on the inside, school 

 houses and churches are beginning to appear. To 

 grow cotton or crops successfully, brains are an es- 

 sential element. — Chicago Tribune. 



Great destruction of the peach crop — 

 The trees supposed to be Badly In- 

 jured by the Cold— Fruit Prospects. 



[Letter from Rural.] 



OoBDEN, III., Jan. 18, 1864. 

 A great calamity has befallen the fruit growes of 

 this part of the State. The next peach crop, if not 

 a large part of the trees have been utterly ruined. 

 The great cold wave that rolled down from the 

 Arctic region.s on the first day of the year, has 

 crushed in its pathway every blossom bud of the 

 peach, the apricot and the nectarine, from the 

 northern limits of this fruit southward, beyond 

 the limits of the State of Tennessee, if not far into 

 the States. South. Never within the history of the 

 West, has there been such a wide spread disaster 

 — never such a far extended wave of Arctic cold. 



Near this station the peach orchards numbered 

 not let^s than 50,000 trees ; at Makanda, {seven 

 miles north, about the s-.ime number ; and at Anna, 

 seven miles south, some 20,000 ; making, within 

 twenty miles, 120,000 trees. These are worth, in- 

 cluding the land and buildings, nearly or quite a 

 half a million of dollars, an investment that has 

 been made mostly within the past six years, and 

 whicli would have been quadrupled in the next two 

 years. That the trees are seriously injured, all ad- 

 mit ; but it is difiicult to judge of the real damage 

 to a peach tree by the discoloration of bark. All 

 are more or less injured, and many of the large 

 trees that we have examined are dead to a certainty. 

 We should not be surprised to find most of them 

 killed outright, while, at best, they will be two or 

 three years in recovering, and will in no event 

 make good orchards. It will require twenty-five 

 thousand dollars to replace these orchards with 

 nursery trees to say nothing of the labor for four 

 or five years to bring them into a good bearing 

 condition. This estimate is for the peach on a 

 section of twenty miles, but it is well known that 

 there are large orchards, streatching from Pulaski 

 Station as far north as Mattoon. 



But to get the trees to replace these orchards, is 

 the question, as the nurseys have been exhausted, 

 of the stock and those budded the last season are 



