Being 42 per cent. of the improved land. But there is still the large fraction of 17 per cent. of the improved land not yet accounted for. It will be found principally included in the orchards and nurseries which occupy, in the aggregate, a large quantity of land in this group. The average annual value of the vegetable products per acre of the improved land, exclusive of pasture, is $15.50 per acre. The aggregate annual grain product is 17 bushels of all kinds per acre for the land upon which it was grown. Reducing sheep to an equivalent of cattle or horses, at 7 to 1, they Whole number of cattle or their equivalent........... 150,640 641,249 The aggregate of improved land to cattle is one to two acres, and one eow to six acres. The disproportion of cows to horses is a marked feature in the animals of this group. The proportion of cows to aggregate stock is 24 per cent., and of all the cows in the State is 14 per cent.; but of the neat cattle of the group it is 44 per cent. Total value of animal products exclusive of animals sold.... $4,202,363 To this sum should be added for the value of swine over six months, which $1,431,370 Also of the cattle killed, which was 30,773, at $20............. 615,460 789,200 One-tenth of the horses, 14,238... 427,140 527,240 $7,993,775 One-fourth of sheep, 263,620 head, at $2. Total value of annual surplus of animal products........ As this is a grain growing group, there should be added to the annual products the surplus arising from wheat, barley, rye and beans; and as it is a fruit growing region, the surplus of the orchard should also be added. The value of surplus products, then, besides those from animals, would Which is equal to $6.75 per acre of the improved land of the group, making the annual revenue of the farm $405.00, or nearly 8 per cent upon the capital invested. AGRICULTURE. The agriculture of this group may be termed mixed husbandry, as nearly all the land is capable of successful cultivation in wheat, and all the other grains yield profitable returns. The surplus principally depended upon for revenue is grain; winter wheat is the staple crop, and barley is the next most important one. Rye is grown to some extent as a staple, but only in the vicinity of large towns, where the straw forms a profitable product for the market. The system generally adopted by the best class of farmers is to manure as well as they can, a clover sod which is turned over for corn, followed by oats and winter wheat, and seeded with clover and herds-grass. Plaster is used extensively upon the clover; manure is also applied to the wheat when sown, if it be in the yard; and some farmers pile their manure, which is more or less of straw, in the spring, and cart it upon the wheat when sown in the fall. The animals which are the most nerally kept are sheep, horses and hogs. The necessity of more attention to manure has compelled the adoption of a system that keeps less land under the plow and more in clover and grass, and cattle are being kept in much larger numbers than formerly; and albeit the farmers do make money from their farms, they by no means make as much as they ought with so rich a soil and so great facilities for markets. Their lands do not present the same advantages for permanent pasture as upon a soil less calcareous, more elevated, and consequently more moist. The plan now gradually growing into favor, of abandoning the fallow system, or plowing in a crop of clover for a crop of wheat, and adopting the system of, 1st, corn; 2d, oats; 3d, wheat and seeds, and mowing or pasturing until the clover becomes less luxuriant, is that from which most money can be taken from the land, and its fertility not only maintained but increased. But it can only be made to produce these results in the highest degree by winter stall-feeding, either of sheep or cattle. If the coarse grains be consumed upon the farm, and by their consumption with oil meal, the straw and offal of the farm be converted into manure, the clover consumed by the stock in the yard rather than upon the ground, or plowed in as grain manure, a system will be perfected that must add largely to the profits of the farmer, especially if the land be well drained. when it is too wet for early cultivation. Much of the land in this group requires draining, and in no other portion of the State can farmers better afford to completely under-drain their clay lands. There are certain facts operating upon their system of farming, as heretofore followed, which it would be well for them to heed. Their vegetable products fetch but a trifle more than they did twenty years ago-perhaps many articles not so much, whereas animals or animal products have nearly or quite doubled in the same time, and many nearly or quite quadrupled. Any system, therefore, which does not recognize this great fact, becomes more or less defective in its proper or desired results. The remarks heretofore made in regard to the effect of markets upon agriculture apply to this group with peculiar force, and properly pondered will add largely to the wealth of the considerate farmer. By an examination of the tables it will be seen that sheep are the prevailing stock of this group, there being a trifle over two acres of cultivated land to a sheep, while in none of the others does it fall below four, and in some exceeds six acres to one. But it will also be noticed that the dairy is not successful here, for while in the adjoining group only eleven acres are required for a cow, here it is seventeen to one. Nor is the proportion of land in tillage to that in grass less remarkable, the grass being only forty-one per cent of the improved land, the pasture being twenty-four per cent, and the meadow only seventeen per cent.. Comparing sheep and cows with this and the adjoining, or Vth Group, we find in this group 260 sheep and 37 cows to the square mile of improved land, and in the other 59 cows and 144 sheep to the same surface. |