or suddenly augment the production of wheat.  Let us come now to the States of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and that fabulous wheat district or territory to the west of these again, from which, according to the vaticinations of some, may be drawn supplies of wheat to feed the population of both Europe and America, or fill warehouses that would sustain our people through a longer famine than that which afflicted the people of Egypt!  I cannot help thinking that, to some extent, this generally fertile district of country has, so far as the production of wheat is concerned, been “shouted forth in acclamations hyperbolical.”  My own impression in regard to it is, including the states last named, derived in part from observation, from intercourse and correspondence with intelligent agriculturists of these states, and from a careful examination of a geological survey of two of them, that the soil and climate of this whole district of country are not particularly favorable to the production of wheat.  The popular idea I know to be otherwise.  I am not going to dwell upon it, or to examine the subject at any length.  There is a single remark that may help to explain the reputation that has gone abroad in reference to the wheat-producing qualities of these lands.  The prairie sod, when first broken up, generally produces wheat well, often most abundantly, provided it escapes the rust, insect, &c.  But, when this ground has been much furrowed, becomes completely pulverized by exposure to the atmosphere, the light and friable mould, of which most of it is composed, drenched, as a good deal of it is, at times, with surface water, fails to hold or sustain the roots of the plant, it is thrown out, or winter-killed; and “winter-killed,” “winter-killed,” “winter-killed,” we all know, is among the catalogue of disasters that almost annually reach us.  Sometimes, when escaping the winter, the high winds of spring blow this light soil from the roots, exposing them to such an extent, that, in a dry time in particular, the wheat often perishes.  When breaking up fresh prairies, there was much encouragement and promise of hope, but which, I believe, has not been, nor is likely to be, realized by their husbandmen, in the degree that early experiments induced them to look for.

As appears by the last report of the Commissioner of Patents, the crop of Illinois, in reference to population and production, is below that of Kentucky, and both Indiana and Illinois are below that of Tennessee.  The crop of Indiana is set down at 8,300,000, her population at 1,000,000, or equal to 81/2 bushels a-head.  The production of Illinois is stated at 5,400,000, her population at 800,000, or less than seven bushels to each inhabitant—­and both these “fair and fertile plains” are still farther behind the old “battered moors” of Maryland and Virginia.

Much of their wheat, too, is spring wheat, sown often on land where the fall crop