Year: 1865

Now that the blackberry season is
nearly over we may appropriately say
a word or two about the crops. The


boats arriving at our wharf, as we'll as
the wagons at our market, have found


ready sale for their berries at rates run
ming from a dollar to dollar and a
quarter per bucket of say two and n


hnn gallons. The people have been
precipitately eager for such fruit, be-
cause ofthe expected scarcity and high
price of apples and peaches this year.
In this section the apple crop will be
next thing TO u failure, and such is the
general complaint except in New York
and New Jersey. The wheat crop of
the country has now been generally
harvested, and, contrary to the general
expectation and the promise of early
spring, is, in many cases, partial
or entire failure. In New York and in
Northern, Western and Southern
Ohio the crop is good both i'll quantity
and quality, but in some parts of
Illinois and Missouri the yield is very
small and hardly phys for harvesting.
The rust has caused the failure, and
fields that, two months ago, promised
twenty-five bushels of nice grain to the
acre now give only six or eight bushels
of shriveled kernels, almost worthless.
In Indiana late frosts and the weevil
have also injured the wheat, and the
crop of this year will be from a third to
half less than in 1864. The oats and
hay crops in Indiana are very much
better than usual, enough so to balance
all the pecuIliary loss occasioned by the
partial failure of wheat. In Michigan
and Wisconsin all the crops. promise
well, and in Iowa the yield Of wheat
will be above the average. TbetcerealI
crops in most, of the Southe4h States
will be very good. Avery large " heat
crop has just been harvested, and n
good corn crop is promised unless it is
injured by the drouth which now pre-
walls there. In Louisiana and Georgia
there will be abundant crops of corn.


So great has been the damage TO the
wheat crop in many parts of Illinois
and Missouri that the farmers have not
cut the wheat at all, not deemine it
worth the trouble, There is, however.
sufficient old wheat of good quality in
those States to supply any deficiency
occasioncd by a short crop this year


The prospects for corn are generally
very good. In Minnesota and further
west the grasshoppers have proved a
terrible and destructive plague. In
many of the counties of Minnesota
they have destroyed more than half of
all the crops, and have hardly left veg
etables enough for seed. Wheat has
suffered the most from their ravagcs,
and corn the least. When they have
finished up their work in one county
they fly away through the forests to
some other spot, filling the air and al
most Obscuring the light of the sun, so
numerous are they. Grain, vegetables,
currant bushes and young fruit trees
are their fayorite food, and no device
that the farmers have employed has
been effectual in preventing their rava-
ges. In some wheat fields they have
cut through straight swath of several
rods width, leaving the ground as
clean as if the hRrvesters had cut and
removed the grain.


In New England and the middle
States there is no large deficiency re-
ported in any crop, save in apples in
New England. Tho hay crop will be
very large, as will onts and other grains,
and the prospects for potatoes and


other root crops are unusually good for
the season. On the whole, the crops of
the country for 1865 will probably be


fully equal to those of 1864: and then,
too, we are Mt peace, which will add


considerable to the feeding power of


what we raise, as the waste and loss in


cident to army life will be avoided.