ANNUAL REPORT—AGRICULTURE. 
33 
The product per acre in the west is from 1 to 3 tons of the 
straw, and 8 to 20 bushels of the seed, according to soil, seed¬ 
ing and cultivation. 
The average price of the seed in Milwaukee and Chicago 
the past year was about $1.80 per bushel. 
GRASS AND GRASS SEEDS. 
It is an occasion for much regret and serious comment that 
Wisconsin farmers have not yet come to a proper realization 
of the importance of a more general and thorough cultivation 
of the grasses. The following figures will tell the story of our 
slow progress in this particular during the past ten years: 
I860. 1870. 
Hay crop of Wisconsin, tons... 855, 037 1,287, 651 
Grass seed, bushels... 26,512 13,016 
Clover seed,-do. 3,852 2,906 
Making due allowance for the large proportion of the hay 
crop that should be classed as marsh lia} 7 , and that circum¬ 
stances may account for a relative proportionate increase of 
this kind, we are not far from the mark in assuming that there 
is but little if any more cultivation of the grasses now than 
there was ten years ago !—which, to any thorough-going, 
systematic farmer in the world will be abundant proof that 
our agriculture is still of that rude, blundering, make-shift 
sort which would more properly characterize a semi-barbarous 
people. 
These humiliating statistics are confirmed as being approx¬ 
imately correct by any one who has of late traveled exten¬ 
sively over the state, and noted the scarcity of the fields of 
clover—that most nutritious food for domestic animals, and 
most admirable renovator of exhausted soils. 
As a cleanser, mellower, and enricher of the soil, there is no 
substitute for it among all the crops or other agencies known 
to agriculture. 
Complaints are sometimes heard among our farmers that 
clover “ heaves,” “ winter kills,” “ will not grow.” Have such 
3—Ag. Tr. 
