The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1879-11-05
SOUTHERN HOME AND FARM.

India has become one Of the largest
wheat-producing countries in the world I;
and it is anticipated that the completion
of the Indus railroad, by cheapening
carriage, viii make the Punjaub a won
derfully large exporting province.
Illinois Wheat CrOp.-The wheat
crop of Illinois this year, according tc
figures received by estate Board of Ag-
riculture, amounts TO ~, 900, 900 bushels,
an average of 192 per acre, and valued
at $37, 260, 900, an average of SO cents
per bushel in producers hands. 1t is
considered the largest and most valuable
wheat crop ever raised in the state. The
total land s0Wn to wheat was 2,137, 900
acres
Is Glover a Fertilizer G-The fol-
lowing may throw some light on the
subject: About twenty years since a
man obtained, by lease, tract of land
for a 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-seyen bushels
per acre, and it has remained a fertile
field to the present time, and is very
valuable land.-Neo0 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
a 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 a few grains to Lima,
which were planted, the entire product
being used for seed 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 tie
settlement of the country by the English
and Dutch.
The San Francisco Journal of Com
nerce is contemplating the future cereal
crops of the Pacific coast through mag
nifying glasses. California" it says,
has 25,000,00O acres of wheat lands,
and Oregon 100000 (total 45, 900, 000),
of which not more than One-seyenth 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 been
shipped there. That is to say these two
states of the Pacific coast can supply
the usual needs of Western Europe. To
do this, however, would require an agri-
cultural population, or one devoted TO
the raising of wheat about seven times
as large as it now is. That is, a pOpula-
tion of $50, 900 wOrkmen, or over million
of men, women and children, and two
millions of general population. At a
rate of increase of 100000 a year, it
wOul8 take US twenty years before we
reached that. But by that time the
wheat-eating population of the world
would nigh have doubled while a great
deal of what are now wheat lands on
this coast, one-third of them at least,
would have ceased to be used for that
purpose. 1t does not, therefore, seem as
if we should have much cause to fear
that we shall ever be able to raise too
much wheat.
Fried Steak.-A lady writing to the
Queen, asks how to make fried steak
tender, and whether the fault is in the
cook or in the utensil. The editor re-
plies: In neither; steak should be
brOiled, and not fried" There are many
instances, particularly in small families,
where it is much more convenient to fry
than to broil steak. To do the latter
necessitates a good and brisk fire, and
if dinner is to be served at six o'clock,
this will keep the kitchen hot all the
afternoon; but if the steak is to be fried,
a quick, light fire of wood will answer.
OF course, broiled steak is always the
best, but if fried in the following man
ner, we think very few people will know
the difference. Choose an iron frying
pan, let it get very hot, and without
using a bit of any kind of fat except
that on the meat, throw the steak on the
hot pan; turn it every two minutes to
prevent burning. Be careful to insert
the fork to the outer rim of fat, so as not
to lose the juices of the meat. 1t will
cook in eight to twelve minutes accord
ing to the thickness of the steak and the
taste of the eater. Transfer the meat
to hot dish, pour about tablespoonful
of hot water into the kissing pan, shake
it well and turn it over the meat.
Season it as you would if broiled with
butter, parsley, lemon juice, pepper and
salt; and if your butcher has been true,
and your cook judicious one, you will
not despise fried stake"