brought to heavier weights of carcass than onr fathers used to bring their sheep to after keeping them three or four years. And cattle feeding, to be rendered remu nerative, must be conducted precisely in the same way. The calf must never be stinted of food, but have plenty of milk at first, and then milk and meal with a ittle oil cake. As he grows bigger, and devours more of the natural food of the farm, whether it be hay and root pulp or green food, a portion of the milk may bo taken off, or skim-milk thickened with linseed meal, or linseed boiled to muci lage, may be substituted for the whole milk, but when this is done the allowance of oil cake should be increased. The calf should at all times be fed so as to go on steadily putting on flesh more and more as it grows, never being allowed to have a check at any time, but to enjoy one con tinuous, progressive development, with greater and still greater allowances of oil cake or meal, the result of which will be the production of two-year-old beef. Well bred young steers and heifers, in short, may be ripened into tolerably good ma turity at two years old, if only they are of the right strain of blood, for a great deal depends on this. Practical men of great experience are well aware what astonish ing differences present themselves in the capabilities of animals to lay on flesh rapidly and arrive at maturity quickly Of a number of stock picked up indiscri minately at fair or market the proportion of t( ne’er-do-well” ones would be large, while others would thrive to a wish. Here and there a few excellent judges of stock may be found capable of picking out the good doers from the bad at a glance ere their capabilities have been tried. But this is a rare gift, and can scarcely be termed a feat of skill to be required ; con quently the necessity of graziers who de sire to produce two-year-old beef on _a large scale rearing their own stock mani fests itself.

AMERICA.

PRODUCTION’ OF WHEAT. The United States at present produces about one-fourth the wheat grown in the world. Her yield for 1879 is about 56.000. qr. ’ According to the official statistics, her wheat area is upwards of 32.000. acres, or ten times that of the British Islands. The area of the crop of 1878 was 25 per cent, greater than that of 1877, whilst during 1879 a further increase was made of fully 3 per cent. —an incre ment of 28 per cent, under two years. This rapid augmentation testifies how readily and quickly the supplies in America respond to the demand. liven with this large accession, the wheat area of the States is only equivalent to the dimension of the single State of Alabama, or is only l-44th of the total area of the United States. This abundance of land still un cultivated —much of it available for wheat growing—distributed throughout the vast Western continent, is obviously a most important factor in the continuous perma nent supply of cheap wheat. The fresh, unfilled, virgin soils can be bought at small prices from the State or territory, from railway companies, or from private speculators, who have in some regions taken up large tracts. In tolerably ac cessible situations, 5 or 6_ miles from a railway, such lands, well suited for wheat, can be purchased at 20s to 25s an acre, or at less than the price at which similar land could be rented in England for one year. In many localities they can be rented on very moderate terms, or worked in shares, the landlord providing house buildings, occasionally also furnishing seed, and re ceiving as rent one-half of the grain crops, •which occupy, perhaps, half the holding, whilst, with the other half of the grain, the tenant takes all profit on live stock kept, and on clover, roots, fruit, or vege tables. Throughout the western praires of Minnesota, Dakota, or lowa, it does not cost much to bring the land into cultiva tion. The sod of ages, full of rich organic matter, the debris of thousands of crops of strong grass, rotted down or burnt by the fires which almost every year sweep these wide prairies, is ploughed up during summer, lies a few months, sometimes carries a catch crop, has another ploughing in autumn, and is ready for the crop in the succeeding spring. No expensive, tedious preparation intervenes between the acquisition of the land and the reaping of a crop of wheat. Within twelve months, at very moderate cost, the new lands can he made to yield a full return of bread stuffs. Diversity of climate and circum stance, as well as the great extended area, deserve consideration as important elements in securing a tolerably riegular average of production. On our own tight little island, notwithstanding diversities of clay, loam, and chalk, of hill and dale, of high farming and of reprehensible late and slovenly management, a dripping season, a stormy blooming time, or a wet harvest, greatly affects our total wheat yield. But the extent and diversity of conditions throughout the great American continent minimise such contingencies. Xn the eastern and middle States winter wheat is. mostly grown; in the western States spring

wheat is almost universal. In California wheat is reaped in June. In Manitoba and some parts of Canada, 2000 miles dis tant, it is not ready until August. Under such widelv diverse conditions it is not likely that'’blight, wet, or drought, can operate universally. The season, un favorable in one locality, will probably suit another. Although California last year was 6,000,000 bush, under an average, and other important wheat-growing States of Kansas and Texas were very deficient, this was counterbalanced by the extraor dinary yield of the winter wheat States, and the general total was the biggest crop ever grown in America. Practical men properly inquire how long do these fresh virgin soils continue profitably to yield wheat ? The application of farmyard or other manures, be it ob served, is quite exceptional. _ Throughout the wide wheat-growing regions the great bulk of the straw is ruthlessly burned. Without any restitution of the elements of fertility annually removed, after eight, ten, or perhaps fifteen years’ continuous wheat growing, the best of soils necessarily be comes impoverished. I have been shown in various parts of Minnesota, land which has borne satisfactorily, without manure, twenty consecutive crops of wheat. But where everything is taken out and nothing put back, exhaustion must ensue sooner or later. Such exhaustion has years ago been induced in many ot the older eastern, and even throughout some of the middle states.

The yield throughout the United States averages about one-half of what we were wont'to consider our British average of 28 bush. It oscillates between 13 and 14 bush. The expenses of cultivation in the States are much less than they are at home. In most western localities they do not exceed 40s an acre ; whilst our wheat crop, as you are aware, cannot he grown for less than LB. This low cost of production is much in favor of American competition.

Some further details and particulars of American wheat farming may be interest ing. In many of the older eastern States, the management is not very different from that at home. Rotations are pursued, stock kept, manure made and carted out into the fields, but this materially enhances the cost of the crops, and, with the higher rent or value of the eastern lands, places the cultivator at a disadvantage as com pared with the western cultivator. But steadily migration carries wheat-growing into the cheaper west. It travels withthe sun, at the rate of one degree in eight years. Making three great divisions of the Continent —in the first zone including the Atlantic States, _ with Pennsylvania and west Virginia ; in the second zone comprising all the central States to the Mississippi; and in the western all beyond it appears from the statistics of Mr Charles Washington, the statistician of the Board of Agriculture at Washington, that this great western zone produces fully 37 per cent, of the wheat grown, and is annually increasing; the central belt con tributes 49 per cent., but is diminishing ; whilst still more marked diminution occurs in the proportion produced by the eastern belt, which, twenty years ago, supplied 30 per cent., and now yields only 14 percent, of the total.

In the Western States, throughout California, and even in many of the central States, wheat is grown tolerably con tinuously ; on the deep loam of the prairies or rich alluvium of the plains and valleys no manure is applied, and for the present, at any rate, none is required. Land has repeatedly been pointed out to me in the good, fertile State of Minnesota on which wheat has been grown for twenty years •onsecutively, the whole of the straw being consumed were it was threshed, not by stock but by fire, and the crops as yet showing no deterioration; 40s to 50s, which the British farmer directly or in directly expends on manure for his wheat crop, his American competitor saves. Other expenses are also low. Ploughing does not cost nearly so much as in this country. The easy-working land, usually without stones, ploughed, as it is, lightly with a furrow 12 to 15 inches wide and 4 to 6 inches deep, is turned over by a pair of horses at a cost of 6s an acre. The teams make long days, seldom working less than ten hours; they overtake fully two acres a day. Although the men s wages are 25 per cent, dearer, costing about 4s per dav, the horses are bought for one half the price they would cost at home, and their food is less than half the value of the corn and fodder consumed by an English farm-horse. Instead of 2 to 2i bush., the general wheat seeding at home, half that quantity is deposed, usually with a broadcaster, which distributes eight or twelve rows, and overtakes 8 or 12 acres daily. No hoeing or weeding are requisite; the severe winter weather and hot summer are un favorable tor the growth of weeds. Throughout many parts of Minnesota and other well-farmed districts the land was cleaner than at home. Although wages are doubled for harvest, the work is cheaply and expediously overtaken. Hindering wet is almost unknown. Machinery ha*

long been largely and universally used. In California large machines, drawn by four horses, pass over the fields, cut the ears from the stalks, and carry them direct to the thresher. Mors frequently automate self-binders are in use, cutting down 20 acres daily. The cord-binder is destined to supersede the wire-binder. On several large, well-managed farms which I visited in Minnesota the cord-binder has last year been used most successfully, effecting a saving as compared with the wire, obviating the damage done to the threshing drum by the metal, and removing the risk of the animal eating the wire with their fodder. To save time and trouble in stacking, some farmers thresh the dry stuff from the shocks. Mr Dalrymple, on his 75,000-acre farm in Dakota Territory, never puts up a wheat rick. With 120 self-binders and about 500 people his harvesting is finished in twelve to fifteen days, at a cost of about 10s per acre. Undisturbed by rain or storm, with twenty sets of tackle, the threshers, in cluding a winnower and straw-elevator, and draw by 10 or 12-horse portable engines, the newer ones burning straw, the whole of the grain is threshed out in the field. This rather risky and expensive mode of proceeding somewhat retards ploughing, which, in such a country, must all be accomplished by early in November, when frost may be expected to arrest all field operations for about four months. Tabulating these expenses of American wheat growing, the cost of an acre may be set fourth as follows :

Rent or interest on capital, £3 at 10 per cent. 6s Taxes and rates Ploughing x 9 Seed Sowing and harrowing .. .. Reaping and stacking .. .. • • - • Ijj 9 Delivery • • • • |* Incidentals .. •• •• *• •• •• o 3

40s. In some localities more capital may be embarked in the farm. On many nicely managed small farm, the valuation of the land, house, buildings, and permanent im provements, with the machinery and im plements, amount to L 8 and even to LlO an acre. This amount of capital is not uncommon on farms in the older middle or eastern States, and, of coarse, propor tionately increases the cost of wheat grow ing. Forty shillings is, however, a fair estimate for the expenses of an acre of vs heat in those great regions where more than half the crop is grown. Mr Dal rymple savs that on his great Red River Farm his’expenses do not exceed 365. For that sum in many other parts of Dakota, in Minnesota, and lowa, small farmers undertake the whole of the necessary operations, beginning with the ploughing and finishing off with the delivery of the threshed grain to the rail road station four or five miles distant. In determining the cost of producing the American yheat crops there not much difficulty ; the yield and the price at which the crop'is disposed of are, however, liable to considerable variation. Last K’s crop in Texas averaged only 7h . ; the yield for Kansas wes only 11 bush. ; Missouri and Ohio made, however, nearly 20 hush. # and Illinois 18. The average acreable yield of the whole United States is about 13£. If the acre of wheat is grown, as has been shown, at 40s, and 13i bush, is the average produce, the cost per bush, must be 3s Id, or 24s 8d per qr. —a small price for wheat delivered at a railway station. Instead of 3s Id per bush, as the cost price of production, American farmers generally for several years past have been getting 4s per bush. This affords an acreable return of 545. Deduct in" the 40s of expenses of production there accrues a profit of 14s an acre, or about one-half the value of the laud on which the crop has grown. In connection with American com petition an important question arises what proportion of her abundant and cheap growth of wheat can she afford to dispose ot ? Previous to 1830 the United States exported annually wheat to the value of about L 1,500,000 sterling. Notwithstand ing her steady rapid increase of population, which now exceeds 40,000,0000, she has during last few years spared about 20,000,000 qr., nearly one-half of which has been entered for the United King dom.

A roost important element in the ques tion ol American competition obviously is the distance from market, from railroad, and Irom the Atlantic seaboard. The bountiful and choice crops of remote localities are of little benefit, either for producer or consumer, without facilities for their transport. It is not many years since Indian corn in the cob was frequently used for fuel, whilst fat bacon was a cheap and handy means of lighting the fires on the Mississippi and Missouri boats, and getting up extra steam for a racing spurt. Splendid peaches, for want of handy carriage, are given to pigs and cattle. Hay, In remote districts worth 6s per ton, is used for driving flour and threshing mills. In Manitoba, in the Red River country, and in various parts of Dakota, I have seen teams of horses, mules, and oxen laboriously bringing wheat 50, 60,, and even 7.0 miles to market. Were that

the usual mode of transport, American produce would not be either so abundant or so cheap as it is in England. But there are markets and markets. An American trade list for January I gives the following very diverse prices for the same No. 2 red wheat, sold at the following places:—New York, 1.56 dol. ; Chicago, 1.31 dpi. ; Sfe. Paul, 1.21 dol. ; Duluth, 1.18 dol. j Winnipeg, 83 c.; Emerson and Portage la Parle, about 70 c. Neither of these last mentioned Canadian market places yet enjoy railway advantages. The great and growing railway system of the States largely contributes to their power of economically sending us every second loaf we eat, and supplementing it with a rasher of bacon and an occasional beefsteak. She has 100,000 miles of rail ways, is adding annually some 5000 miles, and manages in her western domains, over level plains and prairies, to make single lines for less than L3OOO per mile. The long-distance rates of the United States are not so high as those of Europe. Ocean rates during several years have been equally moderate. From New York to British ports a barrel of flour, weighing 214 lb, was conveyed per steamer for an average of 3s, and per sailing vessel for 2s 3d. Wheat in bags has been carried as low as 8d per cental; the average would little exceed Is. From Philadelphia wheat has been carried to the United Kingdom ports as low as 5s a quarter. From Mon treal a quarter (480 lb) of grain is for warded at 4s to 9s. Provisions from most of the Atlantic ports are landed in Great Britain at 30s to 40s per ton ; whilst oil cakes are quoted at the moderate figure of 20s to 30s. Beef, by steamer, has averaged 6s a tieree, but less is paid by sailing vessels. Through rates to Europe from points remote from the seaboard are proportionately lower. From Min neapolis, 1200 miles west of the Atlantic, a barrel of flour is conveyed to Liverpool, Cardiff, and Glasgow for 7s. From St. Louis, by direct water route, flour has been forwarded at 5s per barrel. With such temptingly low rates, no wonder that American flour is imported jn increasingly large quantities, showing in 1879 an excess of 37 per cent, on the im ports of former years, and that_ English millers are anxiously inquiring into and adopting many of the more recent im provements of the best American mills. From the English farmers’ standpoint it may, in conclusion, be stated that wheat can be grown in most parts of America at a cost of 25s per qr., can be forwarded on. through bills of lading 1500 miles by rail road, lake, or canal, and 3000 miles across the ocean to Liverpool or other United Kingdom ports, for the moderate cost of 15s; for 2s landing, dock insurance, and commission charges are discharged, mak ing a total of 42a per qr. These figures afford a profit to farmer, carrier, and shipper. When the sun shines in England, and a good crop of wheat is properly matured, the farmer expects to make for his fuller-berried wheat about 2s per qr. more than can be got for the thinner ordinary No, 2 American. With the risks of indifferent seasons there can be only slender and precarious profit in growing wheat in this country at 44s or 455, What can be substituted for it on poor clays and thin weak soils, which produce at best about 3 qr an acre, comes not within my subject. With better prospects, it will continue to be grown on soil where 4 qr. can generally be counted on, where no restriction is laid on the sale of the straw, and where, in addition to the grain, the straw will realise L 4 or L 5 an acre. It is only under such favorable circum stances that British farmers can depend upon profitably producing wheat at 45s par qr., which, with extending cultivation throughout the world and tolerably good crops, will probably he its average value for years to come. PRODUCTION OP MEAT. The meat production of America is fully as interesting and important as her wheat production. It has grown almost within the last twenty years, it is rapidly extend ing, and for years to come is capable of almost indefinite extension. Tee milk cows of the United States number 12,000,000, the oxen and other cattle number 21,500,000, and are increasing at the rate of about 1,000,000 annually. One-third of the cattle stock slaughtered every year, presuming that they averaged about 700 lb carcase weight, would pro vide every inhabitant of the States with riearly f lb daily of beef! But the great breeding and grazing regions of America, where the herds and flocks are so rapidly increasing, and where there is still so much room for increase, are upwards of 1000 miles west of the Atlantic ; 150 miles west of Omaha on the Union Pacific, where seven railroads converge, the great cattle ranches begin, and extend 500 miles through Nebraska and Wyoming over the Laramie to the Rocky Mountains, and still 1000 miles west through Utah and Oregon to the Pacific. Southwards the stock raising ia being prosecuted for nearly 1000 miles through Colorado and Texas to the Gulf of Mexico, and north fully 800 miles through the rich, unoccupied plains and

FARMERS’ SUPPLEMENT.

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