Washtenaw A Rich Agricultural County

The fcrgus is in receipt of the sixteenth annual report of the Secretary of State relating to farms and farm producís for 1893-4. The report is interesting in many ways and filis a large volumn. Among other things shown is the falling orï in the vvheat raised in this county in the past ten years. In 1884, there were 1,332,242 bushels of wheat raised in Washtenaw county. The following year this had grown to 1,598,034 bushels, there being an exceptionally large yield per acre. In 1886 the yield was 1,317,052 bushels. In each of these three years Washtenaw raised more wheat than any other county in the state. The next year, 1887, was a particularly bad year for wheat raisers, the average yield per acre in this county dropping to 11. 18 bushels, so thac tiie total yield dropped to 812,659 bushels, not nvuch more than half the yield of the year before, dropping Washtenaw into ninth place. In 188S, tne yield was 1,77655 bushels, bringing Washtenaw up into third place, a position she maintained for the succeeding three years, with a yield in 1889 of 938,341 bushels; in 1890 of 996.751 bushels and in 1891 of 1,213,396 bushels. In 1892 we had another bad year for wheat and the yield ui Washtenaw dropped to 859,281 bushels, dropping the county into the ninth place. In 1893, the county got back into third place with a yield of 983,982 bushels. The two counties which have led Washtenaw in wheat raising in the past five or six years have been Calhoun and Kalamazoo. In 1893, Washtenaw stood third in the amount of corn raised, leaving her wheat rivals, Calhoun and Kalamazoo, f ar in the rear. The number of bushels of ears of corn raised in Washtenaw from 28,608 acres was 1,653,741. In the raising of oats, Washtenaw stands tenth with 694,139 bushels to her credit. As stated in a recent issue, she is a long way first in sheep and wool. It will be seen that Washtenaw shows up pretty well as an agricultural county. ( Besides theranking given Washtenaw above, the report shows that Washtenaw was the iourth county in the state in the quantity of hay raised in 1893, there being 78,61 jtonscutin that year. Washtenaw I raised 11,815 bushels of peaches in 1 1893, standing eighth in the counties of the state. Other interesting comparisons will be given in our next issue.