17. Grain-drills are extensively used, and it is generally supposed that wheat drilled in, produces from 3 to 5 bushels more to the acre than from broadcast sowing. Broadcast sowers for clover and timothy seed are used to great advantage.

18. Revolving and wheel horse-rakes are much used. The wheel-rake works easier, and does the work more rapidly and better.

19. Horse-pitchforks are used; they save half the labor in unloading and mowing hay; they also work well in stacking. 20. Hay-tedders are not used.

21. What manure each farmer would naturally make in an open yard is saved, and is mostly applied in a long state to corn and wheat. Twenty loads of fine manure applied to the acre in the fall (on sod) will increase the crop of corn one-half, and if followed by wheat the same result will be obtained; but if you summer fallow for wheat, the advantage will not be so great.

23. Plaster is much used, at a cost of $8.50 per ton; on clover the increase of crop will be 25 per cent.; on corn, on clover sod, about the same result will be obtained.

24. Within five miles of the city wood-land has increased in value $5 per acre. Wood and lumber have risen 100 per cent. in the same time-five years.

25. Timber, in clearing land, is disposed of in wood and lumber.

26. Wages of farm hands averaged about $23 per month during the past summer. Previous to 1861, for ten years, $15 per month for the term seven months, on an average.

28. A binder attached to a reaper, would be of great benefit, if it would do the work well. A motive power cheaper than steam, adapted to agricultural purposes, would be very desirable.

FROM CASS COUNTY.

BY P. D. BECKWITH, OF DOWAGIAC.

I am not a farmer, but am a manufacturer of agricultural implements. I will therefore try to answer your questions pertaining to implements only.

Labor-saving implements have been introduced in this county very extensively, of nearly all the usual kinds, and by the aid of them manual labor has been lessened so much that one man with these implements can perform the labor of three men without them, on farms in general. The Howard Mower and Reaper, the Kirby, Ball, Manny, and Wood's, are more generally used here than others. Corn-planters are not much used. Grain-drills are used in this county quite extensively. The common tooth or cultivator drill is used very little. I am manufacturing the roller grain-drill, for sowing wheat, oats, barley, buckwheat, peas, beans, clover, timothy, etc. This drill is used in this section, and also in some other parts of the State, with very favorable results. I have made it three. years, and the main principle has been in use, in rude form, in what is known as the Gage neigbhorhood, about seven years. It is liked so well, that I have sold six machines in the above neighborhood in the three years I have been making them, within a distance of two miles. Some of our farmers say they would not know how to get along with their seeding without this drill. [This drill has been used with satisfactory results at the College Farm the past season.-SECRETARY.] The common rotary horse-rake is extensively used here, and with good success. Horse-pitchforks are just being introduced, and most of the farmers think they make a considerable saving of labor, but are not able to say to what extent. Hay-tedders are not used here. The wheat cultivator is being introduced in this county with good results. It promises to be a valuable addition to the list of farm implements.

Forest, or wood-land, has advanced twenty-five per cent. in the last five years. Wood and lumber advanced a little two or

three years before our present war, but since the war commenced, wood has trebled in price, and lumber has doubled in price. There is no land being cleared here at present.

Wages to farm laborers, by the day, are commonly $1 25. Now, in harvest, they are $2 50, and by the month from $20 to $26. In former years, before the war, wages have been but about one-half the present rates.

This section of the country does not need under-draining. I think some general system of agricultural education among the masses of farmers, would greatly advance the agricultural interests, but I cannot suggest a plan for such education.

NO NAME GIVEN

FROM CASS COUNTY.

-COMMUNICATION DATED AT EDWARDSBURGH.

This section of country has been cultivated about thirty-five years. This immediate vicinity is prairie, surrounded by timber and openings, interspersed with numerous little lakes and marshes. The prairie soil is a black, sandy loam; openings of a lighter kind of soil, and more sandy.

The principal crops are wheat and corn. The average yield per acre, at first, was large, with but a small amount of labor; but of late the yield has been much diminished, from constant cropping without resorting to clover or manure. At first, the average yield of wheat was twenty five bushels per acre; now twelve to fifteen. Corn, at first, sixty bushels per acre; now forty. This decrease I attribute to the constant wear of the soil, without rest or seeding.

For years almost our only variety of wheat was that known as the Wabash. It yielded well, and was of good quality, but at last the insect known as the Hessian fly began to attack it, and to such an extent that its further propagation seemed useless. Then followed several kinds of white wheat, which in turn were attacked by the same insect, and their further propagation abandoned. Then followed the Mediterranean, an early variety, which continues to be grown with success at the present

time. The earlier the crop ripens, the less liable it appears to be to the ravages of the insect. The different varieties of white wheat give, when unmolested by the insect, a larger yield per acre than the red.

Hay has not been grown for market to much extent in this vicinity, except that upon the marshes. The ruling price is six dollars per ton.

The average price for wheat has been about one dollar per bushel; corn, fifty cents; oats, twenty-five cents; potatoes, twenty-five cents. The wheat and corn crops are those mostly relied upon for market. At first, the wheat crop was by far the most profitable, but of late the corn crop has taken the lead, in consequence of the greater certainty of a full crop.

The only kind of fruit cultivated in this section to much extent is apples, which grow finely, and bear a good price. They are produced for the Chicago market, mostly, and bring about forty cents per bushel, on an average.

Root crops are not cultivated to much extent in this section. I have often asked farmers why they do not raise roots for feeding, but from none of them do I get a satisfactory answer. Our soil is well adapted to the growth of most roots, and they could be raised at a less cost, for the same amount of nutriment, than grain. In this section, grain is the great staple for market. The number of horses and cattle raised for market is comparatively small. Sheep have taken the lead of all other kinds of stock for profit, since the first settlement of the country.

Beef and pork are mostly sold on foot. The price for beef has been about two dollars and fifty cents per hundred, live weight; hogs, three to five dollars per hundred, live weight; fat sheep, three to six dollars per head.. Mutton can be produced cheaper than the other kinds of meat.

There is not enough of dairying in this section to establish a price for the produce in our market towns. There are no cheese factories in this vicinity.

In this vicinity, but very little pains has been taken to improve the breed of cattle or horses. The horses we deem best adapted for the road, with light vehicles, are of the Morgan blood, and weigh from ten to twelve hundred pounds; and. of those for the farm, about fourteen hundred pounds is the best, but horses of this weight ought not to be driven much beyond a walk, to have them last well.

Our best flocks of sheep are of Vermont origin. The average weight of fleeces, washed, has been from four to seven pounds per head. The price has ranged from sixty cents to one dollar per pound. Sheep are kept in this vicinity more for the fleece than for mutton, and up to this time the surplus of our flocks has been bought mostly for the western market, as stock sheep.

The breed of swine that is deemed the most profitable here, is a cross of the Berkshire. They possess this advantage; you can fatten them at any age, and they are very peaceable; they are usually fattened at about eighteen months old, and weigh, if well fed, on an average, three hundred pounds, dressed.

There are many labor-saving machines in use among us. Those for the female portion of community the most in use are the sewing machine, washing and wringing machines. For the farm, there are reapers and mowers, thrashers and separaters, horse-rakes, cultivators, etc. The estimated amount of labor saved by the use of the different machines, is one-half.

Of reapers and mowers, we have almost an endless variety. Those that are now taking the preference are self-raking, the first in rank among which is Seymour & Morgan's, and Allen's. The superiority consists in the working of the rake, it being entirely under the control of the driver, enabling him to form his bundles of uniform size, let the growth of the grain be light or heavy.

Years ago, there appeared in our midst hand corn-planters, which were extensively used for a time, but they were soon laid aside. The present season another machine has appeared, drawn by two horses, for planting. Those that I have seen appear to be defective in the dropping-a part of the time