Circular of August last, received through my esteemed friend, Hon. John G Miller, member of Congress from this district.

Wheat.-Guano is not used as a fertilizer or a manure for agricultural purposes in this State. Average crop, ten and eleven bushels per acre. Time of seeding, August or September. Little, if any, spring wheat is grown in this State. Wheat is sown among the corn and ploughed in shallowly, with the stalks standing; or the corn is first cut up and shocked, and then it is sown and ploughed in; or it is sown upon fallow ground, after it has been turned over and harrowed in, or ploughed in with a shovel or share plough. Quantity of seed per acre, one and a half and two bushels. I think that the average product has varied little since 1825. Our rotation system of cropping is corn, wheat, and clover, alternating in the order named yearly. Average price at Glasgow Straw Mills, 60 and 65 cents per bushel. Clover seed is the only grass sown upon wheat ground early in the spring; and I consider this mode as good as any other for putting in this grass as a fertilizer, although there are many good farmers who sow clover seed with oats in the spring.

Corn.-Average product per acre, fifty and sixty bushels. The best mode of growing this crop is considered to be by breaking up the soil eight and ten inches deep, early in the spring, (1st to 20th of April,) with a share plough, planting three feet apart each way, so as to keep the ground clear, with two furrows in a balk each way, and leave two or three stalks in a hill, as the soil will bear. I doubt not that ground or boiled corn is best for cattle or for feeding hogs, although, owing to the little labor that is here required to grow this grain, no preparation of food is cared for.

Oats.-Seed sown per acre, one and a half to two bushels. Average crop, thirty and thirty-five bushels.

Barley, rye, peas, and beans have little or no attention paid to them. Clover and Grasses.-This is a fine country for grasses of all kinds. Timothy is the growth for hay; three tons per acre the average crop, without any manure or attention, except to keep off stock from it after the 1st of April. Herdsgrass is grown by many farmers. Horses or mules will grow poorer daily if kept upon red or white clover after 1st. of August, from the excitement of the salivary glands, which it produces when eaten.

Dairy Husbandry.-Little attention is paid to this business, except butter making for domestic use.

Neat Cattle. I have no experience in fattening cattle. Breaking steers is easily done by yoking together a couple that match evenly (as) to size and strength) and placing them between the tongue and lead oxen in a wagon or cart.

Horses and Mules.-I never heard of a person who engaged in this business of raising horses or mules failing to make money. If well kept, $10 per head will cover their yearly expenses. Brood mares and colts must have what grain and hay they want during cold weather, and plenty of good pasture in summer, to thrive and be profitable to owners. Kindness I have generally found to succeed far better than the "knocking down and dragging out" plan of breaking horses and mules.

Sheep and Wool.-No sheep of consequence grown in this part of the country, except for mutton and clothing.

Hogs.-I consider the cross of Woburn and Berkshire as the best breed for pork. In the frontier counties of the State, the cheapest and

best method for producing fat hogs is to grow them upon the mast (nuts and acorns) alone. These hogs would run, in fright, from an car of corn thrown at them. But in the densely populated counties, the most economical method of growing pork is to keep no more hogs than can be kept in good order within the enclosures of the farm. Corn is so plentiful and low here (generally 20 cents per bushel) that I have never experimented in feeding those animals enough to say how much pork a given quantity of corn will make. I generally put up my hogs for fattening in a pen, through which runs a stream of water, about the 1st of October, and keep them upon what corn they will eat from the ears until the weather will permit the killing of them for my own family use, or for market. They eat during that time twelve or fifteen bushels each. On the day after killing I salt down with L. B. salt, having first rubbed upon the hams pulverized saltpetre. The salt having done its part, I hang up in the smoke house-hams highest-upon hooks in the rafters, shoulders next below, and sides lowest. Smoke well with green hickory wood; and, when finished, put all down in dry ashes. I never see a skipper.

Cotton.-Although in 1820 and 1825 there were several fields planted and produced good cotton in this and the neighboring counties, the culture of this plant is now discontinued.

Tobacco.-Average yield per acre, one thousand pounds. Cost of production, $1 50 and $2 50 per hundred pounds, according to quality and the soil upon which it is grown.

Hemp.-This is my principal crop; and I presume that in this county (Lafayette, Jackson, Saline, Clay, and Platte) the principal part of the Missouri hemp crop is grown. Average yield per acre, eight hundred pounds. Cost of production, three cents per pound. The crop this year in Missouri is about two-thirds of an average product.

Potatoes (Irish.)—Average yield, two hundred bushels per acre. No rot hereabouts. Meshannock, Vermont, and Blue are the best varieties. Cost of production, 10 cents per bushel. Few potatoes are exported from this part of the State, and few farmers grow any more than enough for their own tables.

Turnips, carrots, and beets are grown only as kitchen garden vegetables.

Fruit Culture.-The culture of fruit is receiving increased attention. An apple orchard may be made the most profitable enclosure upon a farm. From my orchard of one hundred and thirty trees of winter apples, I average twenty bushels per tree in a favorable season. I permit the stock (hogs only) to run in the orchard and eat the fallen fruit. The Cannon, Geniting, New York Pippin, Father Abraham, and Newtown Pippin, I rank among the best varieties. These will keep till spring, if carefully barrelled. A three-quarter-inch auger hole should be bored in each head of every barrel previous to storing in such a place as will preserve them from frost.

Manures. With these. I have no experience; all made are put upon my garden. Our lands are kept fresh by the rotation of crops heretofore mentioned.

All which is respectfully submitted by your obedient servant,
J. T. CLEVELAND.

To the COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS.

POST OFFICE, WARREN COUNTY, MISSOURI,
November 15, 1852.

SIR: In replying to the inquiries propounded in your Circular, I shall confine myself to those subjects with which I am most familiar.

Mules. To the raising of mules more attention is latterly paid in this section of the State; young mules, five months old, readily sell at $30. Potatoes. I had prepared a piece of land, not very rich, for grape-vines by trenching it about 18 inches deep. The young vines not occupying the whole ground, I put in some potatoes by making holes with a stick about 4 inches deep, into which the seed potatoes were thrust down, one in every hole, and three feet apart. They came up very well, grew to an enormous size, and yielded about four times as much as when planted in the ordinary manner. The new potatoes were all found near the surface; no working of the ground was done during the summer time. Cabbage, crisped cabbage, turnips, and other greens grow also astonishingly well on ground thus prepared without any manure.

Fruit culture is receiving increased attention. The Germans of this vicinity use to great advantage small and simply-constructed dryinghouses (the stoves made of bricks, like a baker's oven) to dry their apples and peaches. The price of dried fruit latterly has nearly doubled.

Pear Trees.-I never have had as yet a single one of my pear trees destroyed by the blight. Our climate is rather too warm for the pear tree, which is consequently to be sheltered in some manner against the ruinous effect of our hot sun. I prefer to plant mine close to the north side of a fence running east and west, keeping thus, and by some low branches which I suffer to grow, the trunk of the trees, as well as the ground near it, completely shaded all summer. Do not stir the ground around the trees during the warm season. A heavy soil, of middling richness, not swampy, but not too cry either, with a subsoil well penetrable for the roots and moisture, suits the pear tree best. Before planting, make a hole at least three feet deep. It will do to graft the pear-tree scions on apple roots, (in want of pear tree roots;) only transplant them a little deeper, to cause them to make roots of their own. Do not expect fruit from your pear trees before they have grown to a considerable size; never raise young fruit trees on too rich ground. Do not overlook what is called the Virginia crab apple; for making cider it greatly excels all other varieties. What the Germans call coputiren (to marry or join) is in most instances far superior to the common mode of grafting or budding, and may at convenience be done from November to the end of April. Transplant either in November or December, or late in the spring when the buds begin to swell; do it with all possible care, for the trouble saved in transplanting you will have to pay dearly afterwards. Prune little, but regularly and systematically. Sweet apples are excellent food for hogs; in transplanting peach trees, cut them down to three or four inches; prune them carefully in the first years, in February and August. The common sorts of peaches grow well from cuttings; manage them just as grapevine cuttings; they make better fruit than seedlings. We know nothing of the yellows on peach trees; but, to prevent their being destroyed by the frosts, are bound to choose very elevated situations. Plum trees grow well here, and bear little; I raised more and better plums, in a rough part of Germany, with very little trouble, than I can do here with the greatest care. I have not succeeded with the European walnut; I would

like to make 'trials with the black mulberry, the German hazelnut, and others, but my imported seed did not grow. For cherries, tco, this land is less adapted than most of the European countries.

Wine. In a former report I communicated my experience on the culture of the grape-vine and the manufacture of wine. Last spring our grape harvest was mostly destroyed by heavy mildews at the blossoming time; I saw some vineyards that had escaped more or less-it is difficult to tell for what reason. It seemed to me that their situation was rather less open and airy than is generally deemed advantageous, and that they were in some manner sheltered by opposite heights from the injurious effects of winds from the southwest. It is still my opinion that the Catawba, though doubtless highly recommendable in every other respect, is a little too delicate for our climate in the Far West, and that repeated experiments should be made with the cultivation of the native vines of this and the neighboring States. My own experience on such trials I shall be able to communicate in a few years. Catawba wine will, under proper management, improve in the course of some years so considerably as to surpass nearly any similar beverage imported from foreign countries. But the taste of the majority of our people has first to undergo a change for the better before wine-raising will find due encouragement in this country. A moderate use of genuine native wine (besides beer) ought to take the place of whiskey and brandy.

I have commenced making hedges of the Osage orange, and hope to succeed.

Hops.-Latterly the attention of the Germans in this vicinity has been directed to raising hops; they follow the manner adopted in Europe, and have thus far succeeded beyond expectation. In St. Louis, where several thousand dollars are annually expended for that article, no imported hops bring a higher price than those raised in our own State. The demand is increasing steadily. It is highly desirable that competent persons in the Northeast should give public information about the rules for raising this valuable product in this country.

I was raised in a hilly country of the Old World, but I never saw there hill-side fields, though they had been perhaps for a thousand years in cultivation, so badly washed as they are here done in one single year. Some of our hill places are already ruined beyond redemption-and this is a new country.. Farming in the old style will do no longer; we are bound to restrain the culture of grain-to put more of our ground in clover and grass, and to try to make something from fruit, wine, hops, and the like.

Yours, very respectfully,

FREDERICK MUNCH.

MENDON, ADAMS COUNTY, ILLINOIS,
December 10, 1852.

SIR: Your Agricultural Circular came to hand in due time, for which please to accept my sincere and hearty thanks; not so much for the act of courtesy as for the evidence it affords of the interest the general government is beginning to feel toward the agricultural interests of the

country generally, and to the great valley of the West in particular. I think I speak the sentiments of nine-tenths of the laboring people of the land when I say that no public documents issued from any department are read with so much satisfaction as your annual Reports, both mechanical and agricultural; and the reason is a very plain one: they are wholly divested of every germ of political or sectional character, and treat of subjects that interest the great mass of our laboring population. I am fully aware of the fact that manual labor, either of a mechanical or agricultural character, when followed as a necessary means of obtaining a livelihood, is considered by some as a degrading employment throughout our land. With amateur farmers, who cultivate large tracts of land by servitude, voluntary or involuntary, I have nothing to say; they do not come within my range; I speak of those who toil early and late, through sunshine and storm-who wear out their lives with the cast iron drudgery of hard labor to feed a nation which otherwise would starve-who are classified by polite circles as the connecting link between the brute creation and themselves-who wear out a life of sorrow and toil, and sink into the grave, to be forgotten like the beasts that perish.

It is the name and character which our nation has given to a life of labor and toil that are driving every young man who can sport a black coat and a yellow glittering watch-chain into the counting room of the merchant, the laboratory of the village apothecary, or the office of a fifthrate practising attorney; from whence, after the usual twelve weeks' apprenticeship, a swarm is sent forth to fill those polite circles with merchants who have paid 10 cents on the dollar, physicians who have filled our church yards with the victims of their quackery, and brawling lawyers who have sported their shingle in some obscure village corner; but have never seen a brief in their brief lifetime.

To the charge of belonging to that despised race of hard-working men I plead guilty; I submit to my fate without a murmur or a sigh. But as your limits, and my time, forbid a prosy essay, I will reply, briefly, to some of the queries set forth in your Circular.

Wheat. There is something radically wrong in the management of the wheat crops of Illinois; of this I am fully satisfied. We employ no manure, of course, on our prairie lands, for none is wanted in the production of a wheat crop; on the contrary, I believe most of our land is too rich for wheat. In proof of this fact, our best wheat crops, and the most sure, are produced from the first cropping of the land, before the long, tough roots of the native grass are fully decomposed. The prices of wheat ranged in 1852 from 60 to 75 cents per bushel; average product per acre, ten to fifteen bushels. As an offset to this, we must purchase or hire a reaper; if we purchase one of McCormick's, the price is $130, cost and freight; if we hire, the price is from 50 to 75 cents per acre, which is about half the cost of harvesting. In thrashing we must do the same way-purchase or hire, which will cost 5 cents per bushel for wheat, and 3 for oats; other expenses about as much more.