18 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
failure of hops,—a failure so serious that a large majority of 
farmers in certain counties were financially ruined by it, and 
hence were in no condition to add anything to the production 
of the state,—while, again, others had suffered loss from the 
decline in the market value of wool and the heavy sacrifices 
they were induced to make in disposing of their flocks. Both 
of these sources of loss might have been avoided by the exer¬ 
cise of a little practical wisdom on their own part, or by the 
acceptance of the conclusions formed by careful observers 
uninfluenced by the delusive hopes inspired by the unexam¬ 
pled gains of the preceding years. 
In the second place, the- season of 1869 was a remarkable 
one as to the climate. The first two months of the year were 
warm, and dry; the months of March and April were both 
cold and dry; the succeeding four months were unusually 
wet; September was hot; and October and November very 
strangely abandoned the good old habit of giving us almost 
the pleasantest months in the year and went over to their new 
place among the months of winter. The consequence was, that 
I 
the corn crop was late in getting planted, and only came out 
middling by virtue of the warm September; while the cereal 
and grass crops, though good as to yield, were harvested with 
difficulty and secured not without damage by rain. But on the 
other hand the abundance of rain, during the. summer months, 
was favorable to the potato crop; not only inducing a large 
yield, but protecting it to a good degree from the ravages of 
the potato hug^ so destructive in previous years and the fruit 
crop was one of the finest ever produced in Wisconsin. 
THE WHEAT CROP. 
A third embarrassment to the farming community has re¬ 
sulted from an over-production of that great staple product of 
the northwestern states—wheat. Stimulated by the remark¬ 
able prices of preceding years, our state, in common with 
neighboring ones, turned an undue proportion of the large 
amount of labor restored to it, during the years succeeding the 
war, to a very poor account in the production of this pardcu- 
