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Vol. XXXIX. No. 27. 
Whole No. 1588. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress. In the year 1880. by the Rural New-Yorker, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
what little wheat was raised previous to that 
time, was obtained from cleared timber lands, 
as In the non-prairie States. Bat the fact 
once made known, the prairies were rapidly 
sold, settled and cultivated, and under the gen¬ 
eral description ot the " winter wheat belt," 
this portion of the State has enjoyed a great 
wheat-growing reputation for 25 years. 
On the first settlement of the black and 
brown soils, or so much of them as lies south 
of the 40°, about 1885, and thereafter to th e 
0 counties in the south central portions of th 
State went abroad for their bread. Bat about 
1876 another change took place; wheat culti¬ 
vation became successful in the hands of a 
few who tried it; there was improvement in 
1877. and farther advance in the same direction 
in 1878. and when the harvest of 1879 came, half 
the country went more than half crazy over 
a crop, which on the black and brown soils 
averaged fully 25 bushels per acre, and more 
often went above 40 than it fell below 18. 
thought to be extremely favorable, the crop of 
’79- 80 approaches in yield and quality that of 
la3t year. But there is this fact to be borne in 
mind and this discrimination to be made—the 
brown soils have a better crop than the black 
soils, and there is only a Bmall area of good 
wheat north ot 40 ©, winter having killed 
most, and the midge havlug taken a good por¬ 
tion of the crop uorth of that line. 
Considering that all of Southern Illinois, 
south of about the 40th parallel of north lati¬ 
tude, Is little less than one great wheat field | 
that the acreage of the crop has been doubled 
and in some cases increased three, four and 
five-fold within one year; that the crop is 
nearly universally good, and in some places 
very heavy, at least so far as straw is con¬ 
cerned, and considering that the harvest time 
has burst suddenly upon them in twenty coun¬ 
ties and without much regard to latitude ; that 
the mines of Colorado and the delights of Kan¬ 
sas and Nebraska have drawn most of the sur¬ 
plus population away out of the country ; tint 
the railroads cannot spare their laborers, for 
they, too, are getting ready to move the crops ; 
and that the fruit crop absorbs the labor of 
the women and boys in the towns, one can un¬ 
derstand the difficulty the farmers have in 
getting harvest hands, even though 82.50 to 83, 
and even 83 50 to 84 are offered for a day's 
harvest work. The truth is that high wages 
may induce idlers to work, but can create 
neither idlers nor workers. 
But the self-b)uders would-supply this want 
if there were self-binders to be had, bat they, 
too, have been taken to the last one, and the 
manufacturers have two orders on hand for 
every machine they can possibly deliver. 
When the self-binders aud Ihe Marsh harvest¬ 
ers could not be had, anything and everything 
capable of doing harvest work has been 
bought and put to work, and to the extent that 
throughout the length aud breadth of Southern 
Illinois there are not 25 idle reaping machines 
capable of doing harvest work. Aud the work 
is not confined to the hours between sunrise 
and sunset, but goes on all night long under 
the light of the moon aud stars, and when 
these are not sufficient, lauterns and guides 
with lights supply their place. Nor is Sunday 
a day of rest, aud even the circus sets up its 
empty tents iudeserled towns; the usual group 
of bronzed-laced idlers is not seen about the 
railroad stations, aud the passenger trains 
come and go with quarter-filled coaches ; for 
the farmers and their families are at home and 
in the fields. So far, for the winter wheat belt 
the weather has been favorable for harvest 
work aud should it continue up to the 4th of 
July, the great task of securing the wheat crop 
will have been achieved, though nobody but 
those who have been witnesses to the noble 
spectacle , can have aa adequate idea of the 
enormous amount of physical and machine 
force expended aud the wear aud tear of 
mind gone through with. 
After the stacking of the wheat will come 
the thrashing, thougn most of the grain will be 
hauled from the shock and thrashed. Then 
will come the work of sale and deliveiy ; then 
the warehouses will fill and the freight trains 
begin to move; then ihe boom in business from 
the enormous wheat crop will begin, and all 
Central and Southern Illinois will fall upon 
times of business activity and excitement, 
which will recall the flush times of the 
war. 
Of the causes which have operated to make 
such a sudden aud vast increase in the wheat 
acreage ; of the unseeu forces which have pro¬ 
duced a wheat crop nearly equally good under 
conditions so widely d.fferent; of the results of 
so much increased production on the social and 
economic situation, which will follow; of the 
rehabilitation of the country already manifested 
and of many other things not manifested, 
there is no time to write now—bat there may 
be at some future time. b. p. j. 
Champaign, Ill. 
FORAGE GRASSES. 
PROFESSOR W. J. BEAL 
Indian or Wood Grass— 8orghum nutans. 
These common names are not very satisfac¬ 
tory or in very general use. This is a tall native 
grass distributed over much of the country 
east of the Rocky Mountains. The Illustration 
gives a clearer Idea of the plant than any 
description, unless it be for a botanist. The 
report from which the cut is taken says : “It 
grows rather sparsely, and forms a thin bed of 
grass. The stalks are three to four feet (often 
six or more) high, smooth, hollow, straight, 
and having at the top a uarrow panicle of hand¬ 
some straw-colored or brownish flowers, which 
are rather drooping In fruit." According to 
one report, it constitutes about 16 per cent, of 
the grasses in dry prairie regions. It forms 
good feed when young and tender, but becomes 
dry and woody as it gets older. It flowers in 
August and September. The late Prof. J. 
Stanton Gould, of Cornell Uuiverslty, said it 
was "of no known agricultural use." 
In the South there are two other speoies of 
Sorghum which are much like the one above- 
mentioned. 
So far in these articles we have noticed 
three leading grasses of the arid and sandy 
plains of the United States. These are said to 
constitute not far from 59 per cent, of the bulk 
of the feed in these regions. As they are esti¬ 
mated in the East, where we raise grasses 
which are so much better, they are of little 
value, but whore they are abundant aud prob¬ 
ably about as good as any of the native grasses, 
they answer a good purpose. 
Crab-grass, Finger-grass— Panieum san- 
guluale. This is an annual, one to two feet 
high, bearing four to fifteen spreading, tender 
spikes to each stalk. It has been introduced 
from Europe. The plants are spreading and 
freely take root at the lower joints, making it 
a plaut hard to pull up. In the North It Is a 
common and troublesome weed. Iu the 8outh 
It la a valuable grass for hay or pasture which 
is of excellent quality. It appears on lawns 
where the soil becomes poor. See cut fig. 223. 
THE OUTSIDE AND INSIDE. 
The Illinois Wluter Wheat Crop. 
No contemporary record of the great agri¬ 
cultural events of the present year would be 
complete, which did not contain a more or less 
full account of the winter wheat crop of Illi¬ 
nois for 1880. It is one of the many surpris¬ 
ing agricultural phenomena of this age and 
time, and is a striking example of the very 
sudden changes whien may steal insensibly upon 
us without oue being able more than partially 
to understand or explain them. 
But a brief review of the progress of wheat 
cultivation for the last few years in Illinois 
may be necessary in order to more clearly 
understand the present situation, which is one 
of quite unusual promise as relates to nearly 
all the crops, aud of extraordinary activity 
and excitement in respect to the very surpris¬ 
ing outcome of the winter wheat crop. 
Roughly aud generally speaking, Illinois 
has three distinct aud different kinds of soils, 
consisting of the black prairie soils of the north 
and center ; the yellow and white clays of the 
south, uud the brown soils of the regions inter¬ 
mediate between the two. Except where there 
are small or large bodies of timber, the brown 
soils and the yellow and white clays lie south 
of the parallel of 39© 30' to 40©, and in this 
portion of the State it is that by far the largest 
and best wheat crops are grown. The present 
crop is now iu the course of being harvested. 
Prior to 1854 it was not known or believed that 
the post-oak flats and the white and yellow 
clays of the southern portion of the State were 
admirable wheat lands, and consequently 
INDIAN OR WOOD GRASS—Sorghum Nutans.—Fig. 222 
second great increase of population which The first consequence was an enormously 
followed the construction of the Illinois Central creased acreage in wheat sown in the fall 
railroad, from 1851 to 1858, and even to 1860, 1879. some counties within the brown soil lin 
the winter wheat crop on- the virgin soils of Coles, for instance, having enlarged the ci 
the prairie was a tolerably sure one, and the acreage three or four times, and nearly 
acreage of those times came something near counties south of the 40© doubling it. I 
to that of Indian corn. After 1860 the winter the second and surprising consequence is tl 
wheat crop began to fail, and was so gradn- under conditions almost wholly different fr< 
ally and generally abandoned that from 20 to those of the season of ’78-’79. which w< 
