Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1873 — Agricultural Report. [ARTICLE]

Agricultural Report.

Yhk following is a summary of the condition of the winter wheat, just issued from the Agricultural Department: On the first week of April, a considerable portion of the northern belt of the winter wheat area was covered with snoW. The condition of that visible gave promise of general exemption from winter injury, leaving the crop subject to the meteorological vicissitudes of April. In the Middle States a great improvement upon the showing of last spring is everywhere conceded, especially in-New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The prospects in the States south of Maryland are less favorable than last year, and there are indications of a diminishjpg area in the cotton States, although the acreage is not intended to be given in this report. Michigan, the only State of the northern border in which winter wheat is mainly grown, presents a green and vigorous growth, wherever snowihas disappeared to reveal it, apd Ohio makes far more favorable returns than last year. In Kentucky a more cheekered7slidwing--is--inade, giving the present appearance a decidedly unfavorable cast, with indications of future improvement as the weather becomes settled. In Indiana and Illinois, the unfavorable returns outnumbered the rose-colored. The dry autumn retarded seeding and germination,find left the plants too weak and slral-Imv-roofed to endure well the effects of the winter's changes of temperature. Similar ciujses affect the condition of wheat in Missouri, but a great improvement over last year is reported,amd a still more favorable condition exists in Kansas. In Wisconsin, Minnesota, lowa and Nebraska, as is known, very litttle winter wheat is produced, hut full reports arc given of such experiments. The indications from California all point to another year. of great abundance, scarcely a county reporting an unfavorable condition. As a whole, the .wheat prospect at the close of the win ter is more favorable than at the same date in 1873; . w, ■ T 5 —The now Japanese code of laws will be published,, on its completion, in Japanese, English,; and French. The code on. “mixed marriages” has been promulgated. A w.pman of foreign extraction marrying a J apaniise subject becomes a naturalized subject of Japan, lint a Japanese J Woman nrnrrying a foreigner ceases to be a sub™ ject. unless having obtained permission of the government. ■ An elephant was so frighjened by the ;ears at Poughkeepsie,-N. Y,, that lie" pulled up a tree to which he was chained.