Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1891 — CONDITION OF WHEAT. [ARTICLE]

CONDITION OF WHEAT.

HOWJT 'LObKS IN DIFFERENT STATES. Prospects °ln Kansas Are Flattering, While Illinois and Indiana Give Evidence of a Condition Fully Up to the Average. [Special dispatches.] Springfield, Ill..: Reports received at the department of agriculture relative to the condition of winter wheat are by no means full, but so far as they go they indicate a seasonable average. There ;has been plenty of rain in the southern portion of the State and no disastrous freezing. In the central portion there Is a severe drought, but so far It has had no appreciable effect on the growing plant, which got a good start and has not been injured by freezing. Samples of the plant taken from the fields in Sangamon, Christian, and Macoupin and sent to the department were found to be full of flies, in the embryonic state. What effect they will have the future must determine. At present there' is nothing to indicate that the crop will not be an average one, but the condition may be very different a month hence. Indianapolis, Ind.: The latest advices from different parts of the State to the Board of Agriculture regarding the growing wheat indicate a very healthy condition, and the prospect is even bettor than it was at a corresponding time one year ago. In many parts of the State the growth is very rank, and in all the grain has rooted well and the sproyis are above the average in size and healthy iu appearance. While there lias been a good deal of wet weather throughout the State there have been but few washing rains, and the roots have been but little exposed. In some sections there has been some spewing owing to the recent heavy freeze, but as a general thing the earth was tolerably dry when the mercury fell to zero and the bad effects of the freeze were confined to a few sections, and in none was it so disastrous as was the cold weather of a later period last year. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio Agricultural Bureau has issued no bulletin of crops since December. That bulletin showed as to wheat that the acreage sown last fall, as compared with the acreage of the year before stood 100 per cent. As to the condition of the soil at the time of seeding, fifty-four counties report it good, twenty-four counties fair, anu but ten counties bad. Topeka, Kan.: Reports received at the Agricultural Department from ninety as the 106 counties in the State, bring encouraging news regarding the wheat outlook. In four-fifths of the counties reporting the crop is in fine condition, better than ever reported before in the history of the State. The open winter and the frequent rains and snows have put the ground in splendid condition, and the growing wheat everywhere is advanced beyond the condition of any previous year at this time. The acreage is very large. Lincoln, Neb.: But very little winter wheat is raised in Nebraska. It is a little too far north, and as a rule the winters are a little too decided for the successful culture of this cerea'. The continued dry weather of last season, and even until late fall, was unfavorab'e to the seeding of this crop, and a less an a was sown than usual. The winter has been remarkably open, however, and the crop is reported to be looking well, better than the average at this season of the year, though the acreage is very short. Very little winter wheat is raised outside the counties of Cass, Otoe, Nemaha, Johnson, Richardson, Pawnee, Gage and Jefferson, and there only by a few farmsrs whose farms seem particularly adapted to the cereal.

Inexpensive Displays.

One of the features of social practice in London for many years has been the ihow which can be made on fictitious capital If, for instance, the Fitzjhams desire to give a big dinner party, »nd have no special provisions of their >wn for an imposing display, they can lire all the requisites. They can rent sheir silver and porcelain from one man, iheir tapestries from another, their plants from a third tradesman, and jarnish the dinner table with the pineapple of the hot-house—strictly sacred 'rom the knife, be it understood. Such ceremonies of a society that keeps up large appearances on small means are probably not suspected in the United States, but they exist all the same, and it Newport, too. The story is told of a Philadelphia society personage who held forth in great state at Newport until she married her daughter to an Englishman with a name as aristocratically hyphenated as her own, that she jave a garden party on this hiring principle with almost perfect eclat. She rented a furnished cottage with ample lawn space. The day before the festival she made a tour of the Newport shops. From one she ordered Oriental rugs to be sent her on approval. From another she had a large marquee dispatched to be set up so that she might see how she liked a tent on her terrace. And in ;his way she converted her lawns into i picnic ground at not even the expense >f renting the accessories. There was t rather embarrassing interruption to ;he fete in the shape of a personal demand on the part of the unsympathetic •ug-vender for his money or the return >f the goods, but the hostess overawed rim before he could bring things to a serious climax, and the Japanese lanterns glowed upon a scene of successful eleemosynary splendor after a day of nexpensive display.

Whenever a city w ants a new park t advances the argument that it is for she poor man’s enjoyment. Then it occurs that the j oor man can only enjoy t on Sunday, while the rich can put in seven days a week. New York and Philadelphia have both discovered that heir parks have little attractions to he poor, as they are of necessity too Ear away.

It is stated that while foreigners in France number’dper cent of the population, they are 11 per cent, of the convict class. In 1887 1,247 and in 1888 1,279 foreigner's were convicted, the number of English being 53 and 51 respectively. Italians head the list in 1888 w ith 485, then come 248 Belgians, 192 Germans, 86 Spaniards, 85 Swiss ind 43 Australians. - ■■ ■■■■■ I - The steamer Fitzroy, Alexandria to New York, recently brought 2,510 bales Egyptian cotton, worth about $350,000 —the largest shipment ever made.