The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-09-27 00:00:00

AMERICAN AGRICULTURE.

The Times of Wednesday published an interesting letter on
"American Agriculture," by their Special Correspondent at
New York, from which we make the following extracts
The United States of America are estimated to grow
annually 100,00,000 acres of grain and potatoes. Half
this area produces Indian corn; fully one-fourth is
under wheat, an eighth yields oats, while about
5,000,000 acres are divided among barley, rye, and
potatoes. The aggregate value of these crops repre-
sents a grand total of about £225,000,000 sterling.
Besides these breadstuffs 25,000,000 acres are esti-
mated by the statistics of the United States
Agricultural Department to grow hay, the produce
being 32,000,000 tons, while upwards of 12,000,000
acres are devoted to cotton, yielding nearly 5,000,000
bales. The milch cows of the States are tabulated at
Ili millions, and valued at £60,000,000 sterling.
Thirty-three million hogs represent a total value of as
many sovereigns. The magnitude of these figures
testifies to the enormous resources of American agri-
culture, to her abilities to support her rapidly growing
nopulation. and largely to supply the food deficits of
Europe. The value of the twelve months' agricultural
exports of the United States stands at present at
£105,000,000, and is 76 per cent. of her total products.
Large as these amounts are, they era doubtless
capable, not only of being maintained, but of being
largely increased. The actual area of the United
States is about two billion acres; only one-half of
what is fit for agricultural purposes has, it is stated,
hitherto been brought under cultivation. In Kansas,
Minnesota, Oregon, the Red River Territory, and
elsewhere are unused, trackless prairies admirably
adapted for agricultural purposes. A larger acreable
yield will probably also result from the application of
more capital, skill, and care. Farming in the States
Is generally rude; the crops when sown seldom receive
any labour or attention until reaped ; manuring is
scarcely ever practised. The average yield is accord-
ingly low. . . .
The average wheat yield of Oregon is 20 bushels; of
Minnesota, 18k; in the longer cultivated sections of
lowa and Illinois it drops to 15 bushels; it is highest
in Vermont and Massachusetts, where it reaches re-
spectively 19 and 22 bushels
Although the acreable wheat yield of the United
States is small as compared with the 28 bushels which
is the produce of Great Britain, it nevertheless repre-
sents a better margin of profit than has of late years
been obtained by English farmers. Estimating rent
and rates, interest on capital, with outlay for
manure and labour, the British wheat crop costs
on an average £8 an acre. With the enormous
diversities of soil, climate, and circumstances of
this great continent, it is difficult to deter-
mine averages. Taking, however, the Western
farmer who has £2 sterling invested in his soil and its
equipments, his expenses per acre would be somewhat
as follows ;—lnterest at 10 per cent, on capital, 4s;
twice ploughing, 10s. ; two bushels of seed, 6s. ; reap.
ing and binding, 10s. ; thrashing and marketing, 25.;
total, £1 12s, Fourteen bushels of saleable wheat,
marketed even at one-fourth less than the dollar,
which is the average price given in the official tables,
yields a gross return of 429., or a profit of 10s. per
acre. Two years' profit, thus moderately estimated,
would purchase the fee-simple of much of the land in
the Western States Where continuous
wheat-growing without any return of plant-food
exhausts the virgin soils and the prairies will no
longer yield remunerative wheat crops, Indian corn
without manuring still produces fair returns for several
years; and when this fails, as it has done in some of
the older cultivated States, clover, grass, and stock
feeding are successfully introduced, In some of the
Eastern States, the continued systematic removal of
the resources of the soil by carrying away the produce
and returning nothing has naturally led to such im-
poverishment of even good farms that concentrated fer-
tilizers are now being used in market gardening, fruit
culture, and cotton-growing. On some cotton plantations
it has beenfound profitable to purchase hundreds of tons
of guano. Even the New Jersey and Pennsylvania
dairymen are beginning to discover that dressings of
bones are now requisite to maintain the condition of
their pastures, the yield of milk, and the health of the
young stock. Except experimentally, manures, how.
ever, are not yet applied for the growth of grain; but
It becomes an important problem to ascertain whether
naturally good but exhausted soils near the sea board,
if handicapped with 40s. an acre for concentrated
manures, could successfully compete in corn raising
with the unexhausted soils 1,500 miles westward.

•
To the British public and to British agriculture the
meat supplies of the United States and of Canada are
now almost as important as the breadstuff& Will the
plainsof Kansas and Colorado, the ranches of Kentucky
the stables of lowa and Illinois continue, as now to
breed and feed beef and mutton which can be profitably
sold in New York and Boston, in Liverpool and London,
at 6d. perponnd ? Will Indian corn continue to be pro-
dueedin the far Far West at less than is. per bushel and
pr,fitably used to feed good hogs to be disposed of on
Either side of the world at less than 4d. per pound?
Are the American meat exports of the future to in-
erease, as they must do, in the form of dead meat, or,
as is more probable, by the further development of the
liye-stock trade? On these and on many such topics
I must endeavour to procure trustworthy information.