that will be hereafter given, it will be seen that the number of acres sown in barley varies from six to sixteen thousand acres per annum, and that we produce from 165,000 to 340,000 bushels per annum.

RYE receives but little attention from the farmers of this county. Some sow it to provide early green feed for their milch cows; while others raise very small quantities for the grain and choice straw, so that they may have the old-fashioned "chop stuff," for their farm horses. None sow rye with a view of raising the grain for market.

OATS are more extensively cultivated; although our farmers have been greatly discouraged in their production by the injuries which have for many years been done that crop by rust. For several years the product per acre was greatly reduced, and our farmers had so little confidence in the raising of oats, that in 1862 they sowed but little more than the onethird of the usual quantity of land in that grain, and harvested not exceeding the one-seventh of the average aggregate amount produced in the county per annum.

The disease not only prevented the formation of good, sound and plump grains, but so injured the plant itself, as to make the little straw grown of no value for stock, and scarcely worth preserving for bedding and manure. We were not troubled with this disǝase until about 1857; and since 1863 it has grown less and less injurious. It is greatly to be hoped that it will speedily disappear, and that our farmers will hereafter be able to raise oats with the same certainty that they felt previous to the first appearance of this disease, which has so unfavorably affected the quantity and quality of the oats crop. The number of acres sown annually and the product will be found in the succeeding table.

BUCKWHEAT is raised to a very limited exten: indeed. Why is it so much neglected it is hard to determine. The quantity produced does not more than equal the demand for home consumption. The following table will exhibit the amount produced:

Statement of the number of acres sown and the number of bushels raised of Burley, Rye, Outs and Buckwheat, in the years specified, in Butler county.

The crop of barley produced in 1866, which is not yet ascertained, was the most deficient of any that has been raised, at any time within the last forty years. It was almost an entire failure, having been destroyed by winter freezing. The amount raised did not exceed, if it equaled, the amount of seed sown.

THE CORN CROP

of this county is the crop of all others, upon which our farmers most rely. It is the basis of our agricultural prosperity. It is indispensable to the diversified system of husbandry, which we have so long practiced with such preeminent success. In number of bushels raised within the last five reported years, it is greater in amount than the entire small grain product of the county, by one hundred and twenty (120) per cent.!! And for the same period of time, the value of the corn crop has exceeded the aggregate value of grains of all other kinds raised within the county, by at least one hundred per cent.!!

In verification of the foregoing statements, it will be proper to refer to the statistics of grain crops bearing upon this question, so that each person may have the necessary data before him, upon which to form a correct opinion.

It has not been deemed proper to take the returns of any one year, by which to institute a comparison, as sometimes corn may have been an unusually productive crop, while other grain crops may have partially failed; or in some other year the converse may have been true. Hence, the products of each variety of grain, as returned for the last five years, have been taken and carefully compared with the aggregate crop of corn for the same five years. The result of the comparison is as follows:

Aggregate wheat crop for last five years in Butler county..

Bushels.

2,740,300

In this paper, it is deemed unnecessary to go into any special examina tion of the several modes or system of culture, which have been practiced in raising of this crop. The qualities of land best adapted to the production of this important staple have already been given, when speaking of the various kinds of soil which exist in the county.

One very marked as well as important change in the culture of the corn crop has taken place within the past ten or fifteen years. Farmers no longer restrict themselves, as formerly, to any specific number of what were styled "plowings" before "laying by" their corn crop. It now receives much more attention than formerly, and many more "workings.” The mellowness of the ground, and its freedom from weeds, have much to do in determining when it will be either safe or prudent to cease further cultivation of the land. A fixed number of times of "going through" no longer determines or regulates the operations of the intelligent cultivator of corn.

The following statement will exhibit the number of acres of corn planted, in the years stated, and the number of bushels produced in each

By the foregoing it appears that we have cultivated in corn, for the 16 years stated, an average of 56,579 acres per annum, which has produced an average annual product of 2,293,858 bushels!! And the average yield has been 40.55 bushels per acre!!!

The breadth of land planted in corn in 1866 was unusually large, owing to the freezing out of the wheat and barley during the preceding vinter. Much that has been sowed in wheat and barley was plowed up in the spring of 1866, and planted in corn. There is no doubt, therefore, but that more than 65,000 acres were planted in corn in the spring of 1866, and there is, therefore, no question but that the crop of corn in Butler county for 1866, would exceed in the aggregate 3,500,000 bushels, notwithstanding the injury done to the crop by the unprecented flood of September in that year!!

We believe that, of the prominent corn producing counties of the State, that Butler county stands at the head of the list. Two counties, Pickaway and Ross, have had, for the last six years, a larger average acreage in corn than any other of the counties. Yet neither county yields so large crops per acre as Butler county. Franklin county cultivates nearly as many acres in corn as this county, yet her yield per acre bears no comparison.

In illustration of our position, we submit the following statement of the aggregate acreage, for the last six years, of four of our best corn producing counties, with their aggregate production and average per acre:

The yield of Butler and Fayette counties, for six consecutive years, of about forty bushels per acre, where so large a proportion of each is cultivated in that grain, gives each county the right to claim great superiority in corn producing qualities over all the other counties of the State.

By a very carefully prepared table, to be found in the last volume of the Ohio Agricultural Report, page 351, we find that the production of corn throughout the State, for the last fifteen years, has averaged only 31.33 bushels per acre. Thus, it appears, that the acreage for the six years last reported, of the county of Butler, has exceeded that of the State for fifteen years by twenty five per cent.!! and that the average of the county from 1850 to 1865, both inclusive, exceeds that of the State by more than twenty-eight per cent.!!!

With this exposition of the grain producing capabilities of this county, we pass to the consideration of other questions connected with our agriculture, trusting that we have been able to demonstrate that we have high claims to prominence as a grain producing county.

In the further presentation of such facts and considerations as are pertinent to an exposition of the state of agriculture in this county, we should not omit to give, briefly, some account of the cultivation of other articles which are included in agricultural products.

Among these may appropriately be mentioned the growing of Potatoes, of Flax, of Sorghum, and of Tobacco. The quality of our soil is well adapted to the raising of potatoes. Farmers, who have given their attention at the right time and in the right way, to the proper cultiva

tion of this highly prized and indispensable esculent, have always been well rewarded for their labor and pains-taking. And yet, potatoes are not so generally cultivated as they should be. We do not produce more potatoes than we consume. We should produce largely for exportation. It is a staple vegetable, universally used, and always commanding a fair price, and its production should therefore be greatly augmented.

Alarming indications of the potatoe rot are creating much anxiety, not only on the part of producers, but likewise on the part of consumers. We do not doubt but what the genuine disease existed here during the last season, and that it has been doing its fearful work during the winter; yet, we are encouraged to hope that, if we use the best preventive remedies recommended, and are careful in the cultivation of the vines, we shall be able to escape its most destructive ravages. In a table hereafter to be prepared, we will present the statistics in reference to the production of potatoes in this county.

FLAX, although grown in this county, is not as extensively raised by our farmers as by those residing in some of the adjoining counties. It is more generally cultivated for the seed, which has become an important article of Commerce, and which is industriously sought for, at high prices. The fibre is now only incidentally valuable. It is not relied upon, to any great extent, as a source of income, because of the unsalable condition in which the same has to be sold. If a cheap and speedy way can be discovered, by which the fibre can be so manipulated as to make it an available and desirable stock for the manufacture of a good quality of paper, then the business of growing Flax would rapidly increase, and soon become a prominent and profitable crop in this county.

SORGHUM CANE is cultivated with us, and manufactured into syrup, to a moderate extent. It has proved a very valuable substitute for other molasses, and has been used extensively, by those who felt themselves anable or unwilling, to purchase sugar or other molasses, at the exorbitant prices demanded. If science, and the practical skill of those who are now investigating the subject, and making experiments, shall successfully ascertain some real, certain, and not extravagantly expensive process, by which farmers and others can manufacture a fair article of sugar, then the introduction of Sorghum will have been proven to be of exceed. ing great value to the country. As yet no satisfactory testimony of such Success has been given. That sugar has been produced from Sorghum is unquestioned. That the process of its production is easily to be understood and practiced, so that success in making sugar is certain, no satisfactory proof has yet been adduced. It is earnestly to be hoped that our farmers may soon be able to obtain such information and instruction as will enable them to manufacture their own sugar from Sorghum syrup in such quantities as will at least enable them to meet the demands of their own households.