desolation and wasteful exhaustion, was in ancient times especially celebrated for its mineral wealth and productive soil. The elaborate memoir of Signor David Silvagni, of Rome, presented at the sixth session of the International Statistical Congress, at Florence, shows that the industry of the country has made very little progress during the last half century. The woolen, cotton, and silk manufactures, remain in the same state as in 1826. Agriculture languishes. No improvement takes place in methods of cultivation. The exports are insignificant when compared with the imports. The latter are valued at 38,000,000 francs; the former at less than 9,000,000 francs. Says the memorialist: "Our only export of importance is that of objects of the fine arts, which increases yearly; but the fine arts have gained nothing by becoming a branch of trade. Roman art is reduced to a mean condition of mere mechanical labor, except in the case of a few distinguished artists." And he adds that this country, capable of being transformed into a garden, and which might be the richest in the world, would see its population die of hunger, were it not for the visits of multitudes of travelers, and for the pilgrimages of fervent Catholics who resort there to receive the benediction of the Pope.

The State geologist of New Jersey, in his report for 1868, after speaking of the considerable increase of population since 1860, taking the State as a whole, says: "It is a remarkable circumstance that, in the older settled counties, there is a rapid increase in taxable property and in the value of agricultural products, and not much increase in population. This is undoubtedly due to the improvements in management, to the use of fertilizers in larger quantity, and to the introduction of laborsaving implements. Farms without number can be shown which produce from two to four times as much as formerly, and on which there is no increase in the amount of labor employed."

A Sacramento paper states that in the counties of Santa Clara, Napa, and Solano, comprising the oldest wheat-raising districts of California, the average yield of this crop has declined from thirty-five bushels per acre, as in the early years of wheat culture, to eighteen bushels per acre, at the present time.

Mr. Latham, the English civil engineer, states that since the construction of sanitary works, as sewerage, &c., at Croydon, England, the average mortality of the town has decreased twenty-two per cent.; and exhibits figures as proving that the town has, in the space of thirteen years, received, in consequence of the construction, a pecuniary benefit amounting to an excess of twenty-five per cent. over the total expenditure incurred upon the works.

MISCELLANEOUS.

On one of the islands within the limits of St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana, Petit Anse or Salt Island, there exists an immense bed of salt. By boring, parties have proved that the bed is half a mile square, and it may extend a mile or more. They have gone thirty-eight feet into the solid salt, and find no signs of the bottom of the stratum. The surface of the salt is on a level with the surface of the Gulf water, and is covered by earth to the depth of thirty feet.

The president of the Oregon State Agricultural Society, in his address before the society in September, 1868, says, speaking with special reference to wheat culture, that during the careful observation of almost ten years' residence, "not in one instance have I known a failure in any crops in Oregon where the crop has been well prepared, judiciously

planted or sown, and properly cared for. And in many instances 1 have seen fields of wheat in Oregon that, for quality and quantity, far surpassed any crops I ever knew raised in Northern Wisconsin or on the fertile fields of the Genesee Valley. Oregon is pre-eminently a graingrowing State, and for the sure production of wheat is not surpassed by any country inhabited by civilized man."

San Francisco receipts and exports of the articles named for the year ending December 31, 1868, were as follows:

In the year ending July 1, 1863, the exports of wheat and flour were: flour, 144,883 barrels; wheat, 1,043,652 sacks.

The report of J. Ross Browne on the mineral resources of States and Territories west of the Rocky Mountains, says that "Camus, as an ar ticle of food for the Indians, is probably the most important of all the wild plants, and is abundant in all the northern parts of the Pacific coast. It is a bulbous root, about an inch and a half in diameter, and grows in low, swampy lands, having a sweet, gummy taste, and is very nutritious. Besides using it largely when fresh, the Indians boil and afterward dry it, so as to preserve it for years. If cultivated, it might become a valuable culinary vegetable." The plant is otherwise known as the eastern quamash, or wild hyacinth, and in botanical nomenclature is Scilla Fraseri.

In England, as well as in this country, the adulteration of seeds, espe cially the mixing of old with new, is carried on to a very great and injurious extent. In France any one guilty of the adulteration of agricultural seeds is liable to punishment as a criminal.

In respect to the effects of stormy autumn weather on cattle fattening for market, Mr. McCombie, the celebrated Aberdeenshire cattle-feeder, states that he has found a difference of £5 per head between cattle put up on the first of September and others put up exactly a month later, although the animals originally formed one lot equal in all respects, and those left out were kept "on fine land and beautiful grass.”

An ox slaughtered near London weighed, when alive, 2,588 pounds; slaughtered and dressed, 1,963 pounds. As it was sold at one shilling per pound, the amount realized was about $190. The ox was bred by Mr. McCombie.

In India, the use of American cotton-seed for planting is gaining increased favor. The Bombay authorities report that the New Orleans variety is much more productive than the India cotton.

The secretary of the Michigan State Board of Agriculture, in referring to the great damage done by the midge to the wheat crop of 1867 in that State, indicates the probability that millions of dollars might have been saved to the farmers had the Treadwell and the Diehl variety of wheat been sown instead of the Soule.

The number of mulberry trees in California, in 1868, is unofficially estimated at about 1,175,000, of which 425,000 are allotted to Sacramento County. There appears to have been a very rapid increase of the number of trees in the State since the previous year, only 356,053 having then been reported by the assessors for the entire State. The sale of silk-worm eggs promises to become a large business for California.

The "Canada Farmer" mentions a horse owned by M. Yoder, of Springfield, Ontario, which is believed to be over thirty years old, and is still fat, plump, and handsome. The same journal suggests that prizes should be given at agricultural fairs for the best old horses, as only a good, kind horseman can show an active old horse.

It has until recently been a generally accepted doctrine among entomologists, that the females of the Cicada septemdecim never deposit their eggs in evergreens. But R. H. Warder has recently proved by actual exhibition that they do deposit in three of our most common evergreens, Thuja occidentalis, Juniperus Virginiana, and Abies Canadensis.

In Hudson County, New Jersey, a rent of $100 per acre has been paid for land for market gardening.

The subjoined table indicates the variations in the value of hops, in New York, during a course of nine years. First, is presented the currency value of gold in January of each year from 1861 to 1869 inclusive; second, the wholesale currency price of hops per pound; third, the wholesale price converted into gold rates:

Mr. J. J. Mechi, the English agriculturist, keeps three hundred head of poultry, which have free access to the Helds near the homestead. He says: "Poultry are the farmers' best friends, consuming no end of insects, and utilizing and economizing all waste grain. It costs no more to pro duce one pound of poultry than one pound of beef."

Mr. George Manning, in his statements before the food committee of the Society of Arts (England,) gave the following, among other reasons, accounting for the frequent failures to make poultry-keeping profitable: want of attention to choice and management of stock, irregular and wasteful administration of food, want of attention to the roosting, and particularly to the laying-place of hens. He also remarks: "Our system of leaving chickens to shift for themselves until such time as they are ready or wanted for the coop is all wrong. No attempt at after-fattening will increase the frame, if the feeding of infancy has been neglected." Chickens and weaker birds should not be suffered to starve while the powerful are gorged.

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The public domain of the United States has embraced an area amounting in the aggregate to 1,446,716,072 acres, exclusive of the recent purchases from Russia, estimated to contain 369,529,600 acres. The lands constituting this domain were acquired by treaties with foreign powers and by grants from several of the original thirteen States. Out of this vast estate, from time to time, powerful States and flourishing Territories have been created.

In some of the acquired territories large private claims have been confirmed to parties holding under other governments at the time of cession; the aggregate amount of such claims segregated from the public domain, down to June 30, 1868, being 16,943,458.51 acres. Up to the same date, 165,001,359 acres have been disposed of to purchasers and homestead settlers; 60,627,142.03 acres have been granted for military services; 6,306,475.91 to found agricultural colleges; 38,515,065.32 to promote the construction of wagon roads and railroads, and for other internal improvements; 69,066,802 to aid schools and universities; 47,423,950.62 approved to States as swamp lands; 13,280,699.94 reserved for the benefit of Indians; and 12,466,767.23 acres for all other purposes, including lands located by Indian and other scrip, salines, for government buildings, grants and reservations for individuals and corporations.

Notwithstanding these munificent donations, and the giving away and disposal at merely nominal rates of so great an area to actual settlers, there remained, on the 30th of June, 1868, 1,405,366,678 acres, equal to eighteen times the area of Great Britain and Ireland, or the whole of Russia in Europe and Germany proper. Of the 1,834,998,400 acres acquired by the government at different times, and known as the public domain, there have been surveyed a total of 496,884,754 acres, leaving unsurveyed 1,338,113,646 acres. Of surveyed lands still belonging to the government and subject to pre-emption and homestead entry, there is an aggregate of 67,253,032 acres. The disposal of public lands by cash sales, pre-emption, homestead entries, location of military warrants, college scrip, selections in aid of the reclamation of inundated lands, &c., for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, amounted to 6,653,742 acres, of which more than 2,500,000 acres were taken up under the preemption and homestead laws; that is, by bona fide settlers, who have thus opened up within one year more than 20,000 new and productive farms. Of the quantity entered as stated, 526,077 acres were taken in the southern States under the homestead act of June 21, 1866, and the residue in the Mississippi Valley and the States and Territories of the Pacific slope. In Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois there are only a few isolated tracts undisposed of. In the States of Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida, under the act of Congress approved June 21, 1866, no public lands can be entered except for actual settlement and cultivation as homesteads.

Surveyed lands in considerable quantities may still be had in Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, California, Oregon, and Washington Territory. The first public sale of lands in Colorado was made in September of the current year by proclamation

of the President, about one hundred townships being thus brought into market. In the Territories of New Mexico, Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, and Utah, district offices have been organized and surveys are being prosecuted, but no government lands in any of them have been offered at public sale. Settlements have thus far been made under the provisions of the pre-emption and homestead acts.

It is doubtless true that fields as rich and inviting as any the government has disposed of still await the settler, literally without price. Millions of acres heretofore little in demand on account of remoteness from market centers, are being made valuable and desirable by proximity to lines of railway. The Pacific railways, complete and projected, promise a rapid development of our more distant territory, and the cre ation of a demand for the publie lands, which will, within a few years, absorb the most desirable for agricultural and herding purposes. The time to secure the best lands is obviously now.

That great enterprise of the age, the Pacific railroad, connecting the two oceans, was completed in May of the present year, and traverses three of the public land States and three Territories-Nebraska, Nevada and California, Wyoming, Montana and Utah. The eastern division of the road, starting from Kansas City, in Missouri, is fast approaching Denver, passing through the center of Kansas, and to the heart of Colorado. A deflection of this road in a southwesterly direction to the Pacific is proposed, which will pass through southeastern Colorado, and span the richest portions of New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California. A company has been incorporated for the purpose of constructing a Northern Pacific railroad, which, starting from the head of Lake Superior, is designed to pass through Minnesota, Dakota, Idaho, and Washington, and terminate at a point on Puget's Sound, in Oregon. It is claimed by the projectors of this route that it possesses very important advantages over routes further south; that it is the shortest and most central line, crossing the continent at a point where the waters of the great lakes approach nearest the Pacific; that it is the best practicable route, the mountain ranges being here most depressed. It is furthermore stated that there are no deserts along this line, which traverses everywhere tracts of great agricultural and mineral wealth. The climate of this region is of a mildness far beyond what might be expected in such a latitude, as is shown in the great northern deflection of isothermals. It is claimed that the local business of this route will support each successive section as it is placed in running order. With all these advantages, the statement of which does not seem to be controverted, it has been found hitherto impracticable to enlist the capital essential to its prosecution. In this exigency Congress has been asked for a loan of its credit on terms similar to those accorded to the Union Pacific railroad. We may reasonably expect that the rapid development of the industrial and commercial value of the routes contemplated by the Northern Pacific railway, and the Union Pacific, eastern division, will cause their construction in any event.

The public domain extends over twenty-three degrees of latitude and forty-five degrees of longitude, comprising large tracts of arable land, and embracing every variety of soil and climate afforded by the conti nent. The stock-raiser, the dairyman, the grower of cereals or of fruits, and the gardener may choose in these proffered fields a climate and soil adapted to the most successful prosecution of their respective husbandries.

The following brief references to States and Territories in which the largest amounts of public lands are situated may be of service to those