The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1879-09-25

India has become one of the largest
wheat-producing countries in the world;
and it is anticipated that the completion
of the Indus railroad, by cheapening
carriage, will make the Punjaub won
derfully large exporting province.
Illinois Wheat Crop.-The wheat
crop of Illinois this year, according tc
figures received by the State Board of Ag-
riculture, amounts to 42 900, 900 bushels,
an average of 19a per acre, and valued
at $37 ,260, 900, an average of SS cents
per bushel in producers hands. 1t is
considered the largest and most valuable
wheat crop ever raised in the state The
total land sown to wheat was 2,137 900
acres.
lowing may throw some light on the
subject: About twenty years since a
man obtained, by lease, tract of land
for term of years, most of which was
worn out and exhausted rye land. One
field of ten acres was sown with rye
when he took it. The lessee gave it a
coat of ashes and good sprinkling of
clover seed. The rye yielded six bushels
per acre; it was so thin that the clover
had sufficient room to grow. The next
season the clover covered the ground
completely, and was allowed to remain
on the ground the entire season. In the
| spring of the second year, the whole was
| plowed in, and the field planted with
corn, which yielded forty-seven bushels
! per acre, and it has remained a fertile
| field to the present time, and is very
valuable land.-NeD England Homestead.
History Of Wheat.-It is difficult in
the present day, to realize the fact that
wheat was at one time unknown in
| America; yet prior to the discovery of
this continent by Columbus, there was
no cereal in America approaching to the
| wheat plant. 1t was not, observes the
American Miller, until 1880 that wheat
found its way into Mexico, and then
only by chance A slave of Cortez found
q few grains of wheat in a parcel of rice
and showed them to his master, who
ordered them to be planted. The result
showed that wheat would thrive well on
Mexican soil, and to-day one of the
finest wheat valleys in the world, is near
the Mexican capital. From Mexico the
cereal found its way to Peru. Marie
D Escobar, wife of Don Diego de
| Chauves, carried few grains to Lima,
which were planted, the entire product
| being used orseed for several successive
crops. At Quito, Ecuador, monk of the
order of St. Francis, by the name of
Fray Jodosi Bixi, introduced a new
cereal; and it is said that the jar which
contained the seed, is still preserved by
the monks of Quito. Wheat was intro
duced in the present-limits of the United
States contemporaneously with the
settlement of the country by the English
and Dutch.
The San Francisco Journal of Com.
merce is ntemplating the future cereal
crops of the Pacific coast through mag
nifying glasses. California" it says
"has 25,000,000 acres of wheat lands
and Oregon 10000, 900 (total As, 900, ,0O0)
of which not more than one-seventh has
ever been under cultivation. .We-that
is California and Oregon can therefore
supply the world. of Europe with 1885,
100000 bushels, and the people of China
and Central America, ETC., with seven
times as much -four as has ever beer
shipped there. That is to say, these Two
states of the Pacific coast can supply
the usual needs of Western Europe. Tc
do this, however, would require an agri
cultural population, or one devoted tc
the raising of wheat about seven time.
as large as it now is That is, popula
tion of 800, 900 workmen, or over milliol
of men, women and children, and tw,
millions of general population. At ;
rate of increase of 100000 a year, i
would take us twenty years before W,
reached that. But by that time tn
wheat-eating population of the worl'
would nigh have doubled, while a grea
deal of what are now wheat lands ol
this coast, one-third of them at least
would have ceased to be used for tina
purpose 1t does not, therefore, seem a
if we should have much cause to fea
that we shall ever be able to raise to-
much wheat.
How Cedar Lasts.-One evening, afte
we had camped, l noticed that tn
underbrush about us was not yer.
thick; so I pressed through it u
the bank to the first bottom of tn
valley, and there saw the stump of
cedar, about ten feet in diameter, stand
ing with its butt incased in the ceda
stump. Walking to it and around it,
saw that the cedar had been burnt on
by a great fire that swept through it al
age ago. The stump was only hollo'
shell, eight by ten inches in diameter
with large opening in one side.
great pile of ashes must have resulte'
from the burning of this tree. Man
years must have passed before they wer
absorbed into the soil, and fertility wa
6 restored to the ash heap. Then the see
. of the fir had to fall in, or be carried i
: by either bird or quadruped, and tn
tree now growing there could not be les
than one hundred years old. l judge
: that at least two hundred years ha
: passed since the fire, and l had curiosit
E enough to return to my canoe for an AK
to test the soundness of the stump. !
blow of the axe showed that for tn
y depth of an inch the cedar was dozec
{ had lost its fibre, was punk. Then tn
: yellow indestructible wood was as hig
colored as ever. To stand out durin
, the steady rains of two hundred Wasl
: ington Territory winters, and still
: sound, is remarkable durability. Th
: Puget Sound cedar is all that is elaine
for If -fj1e1o,l Letter IN " Y .S1En