20 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
of foul lands by smothering out the weeds; and, finally, being 
a capital green-crop for plowing under as a manure, it is per¬ 
haps a ground of surprise that it has not met with more favor 
than it has outside of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, 
whose total crop of 1860 was full two-thirds that of the entire 
country. 
INDIAN CORN 
Is the great crop of America. In 1850, 1860 and 1870 its ag¬ 
gregates were more than twice as large as the total products 
of wheat, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, peas and beans, in the 
United States. 
Bushels. 
Corn crop of the United States in 1850 . 592, 071,104 
Corn crop of tlie United States in 1860 . 838, 792, 740 
Corn crop of tlie United States in 1870 .. 1,100, 000,000 
For the production of this last great crop of one billion and 
one hundred millions of bushels, 89,000,000 acres of land were 
cultivated. A magnificent area, indeed ! An area which, if 
brought into one enclosure, would constitute a corn field some 
millions of acres larger than the entire state of Wisconsin! 
Being adapted to a great variety of soils and to almost every 
climate embraced within our vast domain; being easily culti¬ 
vated, moreover, as well as free from those destructive attacks 
of disease and insect foes to which the cereals are nearly all 
liable, and furnishing a wholesome and palatable food for both 
man and beast, it seems destined to be always a favorite with 
the American farmer. 
In early times, when the cultivation of corn required the 
use of the single plow and the hand-hoe, and the laborious 
service of many men to till an ordinary farm crop of it, the 
growing of fifty to one hundred acres was a good deal of an 
undertaking. But those were also the days of the sickle and 
the hand-cradle. They were also times of distant markets and 
impassable wagon-roads. In these better days of horse-plant¬ 
ers and horse-hoes, as well as of railroads and home markets, 
the case is very different. Hence the rapid progress made in 
