AMERICA’S WHEAT FIELDS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1018, 31 December 1881, Page 3

AMERICA’S WHEAT FIELDS.

The progress in wheat culture in the

United States possesses much interest, and especially in view of the high price which it now brings, as compared with a few years ago. As retently as 1850 only about 9,000,000 acres of land in this country were devoted to wheat juibure: 1876 the acreage dad increased to about 20,000000, and in 1880 to about 38,000,000. In jfew England in 1870 only about BQJOO acres are planted in wheat. Y>t, notwithstanding the rocky chaBCter of the sotl, careful cultivation aas made it produce on the average 15 1-2 bushels to the acre. Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois together have an aggregate of about 16,000,000 acres in wheat, and the prsduct from these in 1880 was about 180,0060,000 bushels. Winconsin, Minnesota, lowa, Dakota and Nebraska constitute the spring wheat belt. In these 10,000,060 acres were, in 1880, planted in wheat, and the yield was about 110,600,000 aushels, or 11 bushels to the acre. During ten years the yield in the spring wheat belt was increased only by 34,000,000 bushels, while during the same period the increase in the yield in the four States of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, was about 78,000,000 bushels. The small increase and the small average yield per acre in the spring wheat belt is regarded as an argument supporting the assertion that a continuous cropping for wheat without fertilisation or rotation will decrease the yield, and is also an evidence that old land will in time have to be abandoned, and the wheat field moved farther West, or a rotation of crops, alternated with clover, be adopted. The increase in the four middle States shows the effect of better cultivation and the use of improved agricultural machinery.

There are a number of counties in the several States yielding more than a million of bushels each. In the aggregate yield, Colusa county, California, goes ahead of all others in the Union, in 1879 producing 4,506,000 bushels, an average of 17 1-4 bushels per acre ; but in the average yield per acre Stark county, Ohio, occupies the front rank, producing 24 7-10 bushels per acre. Next comes Portage connty, Ohio, producing 22 1-2 bushels per acre. Michigan has seventeen counties that, in 1880, yielded over a million bushels of wheat; Illinois, eleven counties; Ohio, seven counties—Darke, 1,070,292 bshls.; Hancock, 1,063,019 ; Pickaway, 1,006,000 ; Sandusky, 1,065,025 ; Seneca, 1,574,522 ; Stark, 1,340,094 ; and Wayne, 1,259,834 —- aud Indiana four counties.

It is estimated that the wheat yield of the United States will this year be between 350,000,000 and 4000,000,000 bushels, or between 75,000,000 and 125,000,000 bushels short of last year. — Cincinnati Commercial.