\yT
VOL. XXII.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., SATUt^jj^, DEC. 10,1887.
NO. 50
GRAIN PRODUCTION.
Increase Weat of the Mississippi
River Since 1840.
While discussing the topic oi tariff on
foreign wool at the late session of the
Farmers National Congress, one of the
delegates from Ohio, Mr. Converse, stated
that with the present increased production of wheat in India, if maintained in
the next 10 years, and admitted duty free,
as it is not now, wheat could be laid down
in Boston at 50 cents per bushel from
India, and declared that we could not afford to let go the principle of protection
in this country without danger to grain
agriculture, as well as wool. Labor and
land both in South America, Australia,
etc., and wheat in India, are so cheap that
labor and land employed for these purposes in America could not compete.
The increased wheat production of
India suggests the rapid increase of grain
in this country also. We are more
familiar with it in the central western
States than in the rapidly developing sections west of the Mississippi river. There
the increase has been most rapid as the
following figures will show
WEST OP THE MISSISSIPPI:
Wheat. Corn. Oats,
bushels. bushels. bushels.
1JH0      1,192,079 18,738,765 2,451,332
1850      ',513,631 44,888,061 6,833,006
I860    15,024,130 122,675,555 11,843,317
1870    49,334,000 217,317,000 36,828,010
18M  1*»,214,8**9 -66.844.825 113,505,693
"ta-H  ia,.i*».mjO 7r.!,746,000 210,**63,000
This increase in that section is still going on rapidly. Exhaustion of wheat soil
has been noted in older sections east of
the Mississippi, and it is not unlikely that
this will appear soon west, if the heavy
draft goes on. This is one of the questions
that will have to be met and solved by a
better system of agriculture in the near
future. The great English experiments
in wheat growing show the requirements
in nitrogen for wheat soils. An English
writer referring to the fact that this is
produced largely by electric action, during thunder storms, says that these occur
so frequently in India that the wheat-
grower there has a large advantage over
English and American growers, in keeping up the fertility of the soil. However
this may be, there is still abundant resource for nitrogen in this country.
Furthermore, wherever the clover plant
will grow, there is a sure remedy for soil
exhaustion.
THE WOOL MARKET.
Justice, Bateman <fc Co., wool commission merchants of Philadelphia, says there
is rather more inquiry for wool. Manufacturers are taking more sample bales
and testing the merits of the various lots,
many of which are sampled by several
different buyers at the same time, so that
it is expected that a sale to at least one of
them is almost sure to result on each lot.
This state of affairs has led to the belief
wools have touched the lowest point that
that they are likely to reach, and sellers
while pressing their wool for sale, are less
willing to make concession. The market is
therefore quoted less weak. There are,
however, no indications visible of recovery of the recent decline. The new s from
London was not as unfavorable as had
been anticipated, and if there is no further
decline at the later sales, the probabilities
are that there will be no material change
in prices in the United States, unless
cause for alarm should be found in the
tarifi that promises to be the prominent
feature at the coming session of Congress.
It is estimated that during the coming
three months the southern people will receive about "1275,000,000 in payment for
their cotton crop, of which amount If 150,-
000,000 will * be surplus available for reinvestment.
FLAX FIBER.
A New Industry for the Farmers.
BY S. S. BOYCE.
The introduction of a new instantaneous
process for retting and treating flax and
hemp for fiber, and which is now accomplished in the short space of two minutes
suggests anew the necessity of an effort to
establish this fiber industry in America.
Flax and hemp are crops in every way
simple and practicable for the farmer to
raise all over the South and West, both
flax and hemp growing successfully as
far south as Georgia, Alabama ard Texas
and as far north as Minnesota. Either of
these crops will grow finely upon any
good soil of moderate fertility, and best
where slightly moist.
As at present grown in the United States
flax is sown only one or two pecks of seed
to the acre, and most generally as a first
crop upon sod ground just roughly
broken up. The result is that the straw is
irregular in size and in height, usually too
short and brittle for any fiber purposes
whatever. Even for making upholsterer's
tow the straw as thus roughly grown has
too little fiber and too little substance to
be worth running through tow machinery
When grown upon old moderately rich
ground and sown two pecks of seed to the
acre and the straw cut close to the ground
as practicable and run through a number
of brakes from coarse and moderately fast,
to fine and quite rapid, the green upholsterer's tow is of fine character and worth
§25 to $35 per ton, while the flax stools out
so as to cover the ground and furnish a
good yield of seed.
The better the ground in fertility, the
better cultivated, and the more the seed
sown, the finer the fiber, while as much
seed will be obtained where two and one-
half bushels of seed are sown to the acre,
and much more and a-finer and longer and
evener fiber.
Some flax is grown on old ground for
seed and upholsterer's tow in some parts
of Indiana and near Racine, Wis., and in
Minnesota and Iowa. A large acreage is
grown for seed alone in Nebraska and
Dakota as first crop on new breakings.
Some flax is grow for both seed and
fiber along the Hudson river up to the
vicinity of Lake Champlain. One and
one-half bushels of seed are usually sown,
the flax pulled by hand, bundled, and
threshed by flail, ripple or rolls, keeping
the straw straight, and then the straw is
spread upon the ground in thin gavels
and turned two or three times until by
the action of the dew and rain and sun
the fiber will freely separate from the
woody portion. This gives a coarse,
harsh, black fiber, but worth $100 to §125
per ton undressed. That is after being
broken and the shive removed by scutching. The breaking and scutching are often
done by hand and furnishes a good employment for winter. In some instances
the straw is disposed of at $8 to $10 per
ton to those having machinery for breaking and scutching.
The machine brakes consist of pairs of
flutted rolls mashing into each other, the
first sets coarse and the next finer and
more heavily weighted. Scutching is
done by revolving knives operating
against the flax held on a scutching board
by hand. A large number of the farmers
of New England, New York and Pennsylvania in earlier times raised small patches of flax and worked it up by hand, and
the women spun the yarn and wove a
great variety of articles, quite fine linen,
for housekeeping outfits and linen wear,
also tow for shirts and summer trousers
and for bagging. Some of the linen spun
by practiced fingers and women in looms
which   had  appliances  descending from
the Hugonots was so fine as* to almost
rival silk.
There are a few hand spinning wheels
and hand looms scattered in the country
and occasionally used at this time, but the
cheapness of cotton has caused the linen
home industry to go to decay, while there
has been no progress made in this country
in making linen by machinery, not a linen mill existing in the United States for
weaving fine linen at this time.
A good number of twine and thread and
yarn mills exist at Grafton, Andover and
Webster, Mass., the latter an extensive
crash mill, at Valley Falls, and Scaghti-
coke, N. Y., and New York City, Patterson and Newark, N. J., the latter Marshal
and Co., who propose to weave linen,
works at New Brighton,Pa., and in a small
way at Appleton, Wis. The Fall River
Linen Mills, Fall River, Mass., were built
to make linen but changed to cotton in
1857. Ex-Gov. Sprague is reported to have
lost $2,000,000 in an attempt to stem the
tide against European competition at
Providenee, R. I., in 1862-5.
Several flax bagging mills have existed
at times in the Mississippi Valley, at Dayton and Xenia, Ohio, at Muncie, Ind., at
Champaign and Dixon, 111., but the cheap-
ei importations of jute has caused these
mills to stop using flax. Several attempts
have been made to make binding twine
from flax tow, but the unevenness of the
twine and the soft texture causes the twine
to rough up and break and not run smoothly, and it cannot be made to compete with
wire and sisal and manilla.
This is the present state of the flax industry in America, nine-tenths of all fiber
used being imported from Canada, Russia,
Belgium, France, Italy, and Seotland. A
very light straw colored*"flax fiber,"im-
ported from Italy, Belgium and France,
showing that some process is practiced
which lightens the color of the fiber without weakening it.
The raising of hemp and flax is in every
way as practicable and promising in the
United States as anywhere else. There
are varieties of climate, cold or warm, dry
or moist with every variety of soil which
can be asked for producing any and every
variety of fiber demanded. The Hacken-
safck, N. J., meadows, if drained, would
produce flax for the world, the Atlantic
coast and the higher rice fields of the
South will all produce hemp and jute and
ramie and flax in abundance.
If the dryer, more sandy, higher soils
of all the States are not as desirable for
flax as for corn and sorghum, surely the
moister portions and the bottom lands,
and the easily drained wilderness of Indiana will furnish every kind of soil desired. The same is true of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota and especially Kansas.
All of these localities will grow flax and
hemp, and if sown thickly on good ground
the fiber will be long and fine, and be the
source of profit and much employment.—
Concluded next week.
THE HESSIAH FLY.
Prof. F. M. Webster, at Purdue University, sends out a list of questions relating to this insect, to which he desires
replies, as follows:
1. Do you observe injured plants in
your fields? 2. If so, what per cent are
injured? 3. On or about what date was
your wheat sown? 4. What variety of
seed was sown? 5. What was the previous crop on this ground? 6. What is the
nature of your soil? 7. Is wheat^grow-
ing a prominent industry in your section ?
How does the acreage compare with that
of corn? 8. Do the farmers of your section carry out a system of rotation of
crops? 9. Is the wheat crop usually injured by the supposed Hessian fly?
Our readers who have the information
desired will confer a favor on Prof. W. by
sending replies to the above questions.
<&cncKHl U*xns.
The 50th Congress assembled Monday
the 5th.
We use 1,000,000 tin cans in this country
every year. ,
One florist in Cleveland sells $50,000
worth of flowers in the holidays.
The nominating convention of the prohibition party has been appointed to be
held in Indianapolis, on the first Wednesday in June, 1888.
John Lykens, of Fairmount, HI., his
wife and three children and Thomas
Ward were all poisoned with Paris green,
and are in a critical condition.
A patchwork quilt made by children in
the United States, and an Indian shawl,
the gift of Queen Victoria, were buried
with Jenny Lind, at her request.
A strange disease has broken out in
Youngstown, Ohio. The victim becomes
black in spots. Two or three persons
have died and a dozen more are afflicted
with it.
Antioch college, Ohio, had its endowment fund of $100,000 in the contol of
Charles A. Kebler, the Cincinnati lawyer,
embezzler and suicide. How much he
used is not yet known.
The Strobridge Lithograph Company's
large building, Cincinnati, was totally
destroyed, by fire Thursday morning.
Loss $300,000. Their business was the
largest of the kind in the world.
Eighty corn-canning factories have been
in operation in Maine, and over 14,000,000
cans of sweet corn have been put up, besides large quantites of apples, beans, tomatoes and othef vegetables and fruits.
Mayor Roche, of Chicago, will permit
the use of Battery D Armory, on Dec. 10th
for the benefit of the families of the executed Anarchists, only on condition that
there shall be no red flags or other emblems, save the national colors. Speeches
must not be incendiary, everything must
be done decently and in order, and, above
all, no beer will be allowed to be sold or
drank upon the premises.
M. Gaunt, a wealthy colored resident of
Greene county, Ohio, has deeded his pio-
perty, valued at $3i),000 to Wilberforce
University. That institution is a pioneer
of its class and a leading colored college.
It frequently has been the recipient of
donations of a thousand dollars and upwards. President Mitchell says, so far as
he knows, the greatest amount ever given
before for a like purpose was $5,000
The raising of mushrooms in the tunnels near LaSalle, 111., proves to be a success, and the first supply of the fungi was
put on the market on Tuesday. There
are six acres of mushroom beds in these
tunnels, and two crops will be raised
every 24 hours. About 100 bushels will
be taken out now, but this will be increased daily towards spring. The sprawn
is shipped from France and England.
SPECIAL SCHOOL AT PURDUE.
The following are some of the topics at
the special term of the school of Agriculture and Horticulture at Purdue, commencing Wednesday, January 4th, 1888:
Stock breeding, the different breeds and
their characteristics; Cross-fertilization;
Budding and grafting; Root grafting;
The general structure of fungi; Wheat
rust; Diseases of the potato; Pear blight;
Useful fungi; The skeleton; The muscular
system; The alimentary system; The nervous system and organs of sense; The
circulatory system; Organs of respiration
and secretion; Insects injurious to corn ■
Insects injurious to the smaller grains;
Insects of the orchard; Insects of the garden; Parasites and insecticides.