Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1819-08-07

per acre more than by the ordinary way
which additional crop will amply pay a
farmer for the cultivation of the whole.
BY this method your crop will be finish
ed by the last of June, and you will then
be ready for harvest.
There is no country better than this
for raising wheat, which, by careful cul-
tivation, will produce generally forty or
fifty bushels to the acre. However, let
every farmer undertake thirty acres of
corn. There is no doubt that he can
complete that quantity in prairie land,
which experience will show to be the
most proper for agriculture, as it is the
richest land, and is free from the mcum-
brance of t.:nber and other impediments
to cultivation; and, by such careful til
lage, will generally yield eighty bushels
of corn to the acre. No country in the
United States, or perhaps on the globe,
is so productive of that grain, as that on
both sides of the Mississippi river, from
the mouth of the Ohio to about sixty
miles above the mouth Of the Illinois
where there are no hills or broken
ground. The east side is nearly all level,
and rich; and includes about three de-
grees of latitude, having tie mouth of|
the Missouri about the center, which is |
in $50 As. The mercury in the Their
mometer is here often as high as from 90
to 100 degrees. This heat gives life and
strength to Indian corn.
These remarks contain nothing but
what most farmers know but all are in
vited to put them in practice. The cul-
tivation OF the soil is sure to give us good
health, and character, both abroad and at
home; far more than specializing in
town lots, lands, and store goods: and it !
is great deal safer for our fortunes and
reputation. This country is seldom or
never injured by droughts, SO usual in
the southern states. First rate land,
when fresh, will produce great crops
with little labor. However, rich as it |
may be, it must have labor, and that in
the right season.
The writer of this saw, on the waters
of the Sangamo, a cornfield of about ten
acres, worked by an emigrant from near
Boston. 1t was new, weedy prairie; and
had been ploughed twice last March and
April with one horse plough, and twice
more with plough made Of a white oak
fork, one prong hewn down to beam,
the other shaped like a shovel. The
field had also been well hoed. In the
opinion of numbers who had seen this |
cornield, it would yield little less than
one hundred bushels per acre. The
cultlyator is Seaiaring man, which |
makes the oddity more remarkable.
While the emigration continues, there
is little doubt but corn will continue to
sell for from thirty to fifty cents per
bushel; asthere are vast regions of land
to settle superior to any now settled
There is little doubt but people will con-
tinuc to remove hither, if we who are
settled on prairie farms, and who can
make them as large as we please, make |
use of proper industry to raise a plenty |
of grain to sell. Yes, and we may go
on, and give strength and support to the
and trader, to carry our
surplus produce down the " Father oil
waters" to the West Indies and Spanish
America, Here our produce may float
down iii the fall as well as in the spring.
A gentleman in this county is about fin
ishing flour mill, with French burrs,
and other works according to Oliver
Evans's plan. Let US raise plenty Of
the productions Of the field, and it will
induce other gentlemen of capital and
enterprise to erect mills and to build ca
pacious kilns for drying corn, in order to
boult, barrel up, and export it, which, to
the knowledge of the writer frequently
sells better than -four in the West Indies
and in Spanish America.
AN AGRICULTCRIST.
Madison Countu, JuLy Is, 1919.