Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1874 — The Wheat Crop. [ARTICLE]

The Wheat Crop.

'The department of Agriculture at Washington has received very full information concerning the appearance of wheat throughout the country. The returns cover a large proportion of the winter wheat area in each State. The winter has been extremely favorable in all sections. No previous season has been more generally so since the inauguration of the crop j reports, In the south, very few exceptions to the general vigor and even luxuriance of the growth have appeared. In the Gulf coast region, winter pasturing of wheat fields has been practiced to the advantage of crops. In New York and Pennsyl- | vania, the weather since the mid- , die of March has been unfavorable on account of sudden changes in the temperature and cold winds, to the injury of wheat on clay and undrained lands. In Ontario, Niagara, Livingstone and Genessee —four counties which produce onethird ot the winter wheat of New York—average expectations are entertained, though some injury from freezing and thawing on low ground is reported The promise isremarkable in Pennsyl v ania, n inetentES oF the counties making favorable returns, and many of them very flattering. Fully three-fourths of the counties of the Ohio Valley report either average or superior condition. Mississippi, Missouri, and Kansas have still fewer unpromising representations. There are reports from the northwest which are more favorable than usual. The prospect in California is very promising, though complaints of injury from an unusual cause—wet weather —come from several counties. The Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture | reports a promise of 40,000,000 bushels in the State.