Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1881-06-02

sheep farming is wisely the prevailing
industry.
Second, the rest of the State Though
the line cannot he sharply drawn may
be called the grain and stOck-growing,
and dairy portion. But here new fact
meets us. A comparison of the wheat
maps of the last three years (and the
same will be true further back will
show that the area or center of best
yield moves back and forth alternate
years from east to west.
If a straight line be drawn northeast
erly from Cincinnati to Sandusky, it will
he found that-in amid. open, rainy win
ter, like that of 1S79-S0, the best wheat
will lie to the east of that line, while in
a cold, snowy winter, like those of 1880
81, or 1s7S-79, the best wheat is west of
the same line (of course this line, too,
cannot be sharply DRAWN. In other
words, in mild winter, wheat is COM
paratively and actually better east of the
line than in cold one, and the exact re
verse is true west of this line. For ex-
ample, compare the yields in 1879, after
a cold and snowy winter, with those of
1880, after Soft winter, and We have
in the fiat western counties of Miami,
Champaign, Mercer, Henry, and Wood,
respectively (omitting fractions), the
yields per acre
Qs79) "a, 81, 20, 21, and 10, as against
(1SSO) %, IS, 16, 16, and 16,-a nearly
uniform and marked decrease for the
mild winter.
But in the rolling gravelly soils of
Wayne, Stark, Richland, Ashland, Sum-
NIT, and Portage, we have the yields, re-
spectively-.
Qs7s) 81. 20, 10, 10, 20, and 16, as
against
QsSO) 25, "a, 215T22, %, and ga near
ly uniform and quite marked increase in
favor of the mild winter.
These counties are taken at random to
illustrate what seem to be the facts in
regard to the influence of snowy and
an open rainy winter on the fiat and the
rolling lands, respectively. Now, how is
this explained?
Those who are familiar with the geol-
ogy of our State. or even with its surface
and its soils, will remember that west of
that line lies nearly all our level black
soil land, while east of it, and between
it and the curved line that cuts off the
two tiers of very hilly river counties, lie
the rolling, gravelly, and clay loans of
the State. In an open, rainy winter
these are fairly drained, and escape
damage. But the fat undrained lands,
west of the line mentioned, are flooded
or soaked, and report large areas of
"wintor-killed wheat" But in a very
cold and snowy winter, like those of
1S7S-79, or of 1SS0-S1, the level counties
are warmly blanketed with snow, while
in the hilly counties, east of the line
mentioned, the winds blow the knolls
bare of snow, and considerable winter
killing occurs. The only remedy for this
is a strong stand in the fall to cover and
protect the crop by its own growth. If
the rolling land is stiff clay, tile-drain-
age will greatly help, but the strong
stand in the fall seems absolutely es-
sential.
The remedy in the very level counties
is tile-drainage, which shall promptly
and quietly remove both the surface wa
ter and the water of saturation, that
might otherwise ruin large areas in open
winter with much alternate freezing and
thawing. When these fiat northwestern
counties shall have been thoroughly tile.
drained in the parts that need it. they
will probably be the best wheat lands OF
the State. 1t was once thought that the
grayelly loans of Stark. Wayne, Holmes
Knox, Licking, and other counties lying
east of the line named, were about the
only wheat lands of the State. Theil
popularity is, that they have natural
under-drainage. But If the black swamp
and prairie lands of the northwest coun.
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