Norwich bulletin., 1911-10-18
J. G. BILL RETURNS
 FROM WESTERN TRIP
Good Crops Secured This Year He
 Found from His Observations.

After an absence of four and a half months in the west. month of the time in southern Wisconsin, J. G. Bill, one of the best-known men of the town of Griswold, reached here late Tuesday morning on his way to his home. MT. Bill. who is verging close to his Ssth birthday, had been visiting his son, pr. B. J. Bill, well-known physician and surgeon of Genoa Junction, Wis, as well as other relatives in that re- zion, and had a most delightful and entertaining trip, he said
 His observations on conditions ip the west had been devoted particular ly to the state of crops, since the re- zion he had visited was a rich farm ing and dairving country. All the crops this season, he said were good, except the hay crop, the reason for this being that the clover was killed off by the drouth last season. Alfal- ia is the big crop out there and takes the place of hay. The farmers get three crops per season and it lasts ten years with a top dressing once it ilas taken hold. Mir. Bil lis greatly in terested in seeing alfalfa made some thing of by Connecticut farmers, and he has experimented some with it him. self. finding that it will take if plenty of ashes are put on.
 Barley is another great crop for southern Wisconsin. and has brought q high price this season. The corn was good, but for the harvesting of this the farmers have been very much bothered by the wet season, making the ground so soft that they couldn't get in with their machines to harvest it. It is all cut by horsepower and about ten acres per hay can be cut.
 The wheat belt of Wisconsin is far ther 10 the north than where MT. Bill visited, but cabbage is a big crop in the section where he stayed. They can raise 15 to 20 tons of cabbage per acre, which is selling for $4.50 per ton now. The cabbage plants are put into the ground with good speed, as man, a pair of horses and two boys can set four acres per day.
 Oli his return trip, MT. Bill journeyed back by the Grand Trunk to Chicago and hen to Flint, Mich, where he came to a farming country, where the money crop is beans. But this year the farmers had had bad luck just as they were about to harvest, since the crop was all spoiled by a recent wet spell out there, and he was told that the joss would be at least $1,000,600 to the tiIlers of the soil
 While he was in Wisconsin it was not on1y the farming communities that he visited, but he also spent some time in the lake region which he says serves for the Wisconsin people as the sea shore does for the customers.
 One of the peculiarities he noticed was that they had had no frost in Wisconsin yet. while here in New England we have already had the kill ing frost that put an end to tomatoes and other vegetab bles. This he renienl : bers is directly opposite to a season twenty nine years ago.S when Wtscon- . sin had killing frost on the 10th of September, whereas in New England 1t was only a light white frost
 f fn him a if The in these two sections of the country must have switched around.
 On his way home from Michigan he came to Montreal and then down by the Central Vermont railroad to Wlll1- mantle, where he stopped off for three days with relatives, before completing g the final lap of his journey on Tues day