Bartley Davis (letter found on Page 1 Column 5)
I have been in this county, and on the same farm in the town
of Hinton, seventeen years the 13th day of April, 1878. I have 70 acres improved, 60 acres of it in a
good state of cultivation. My soil is
clay loam, with a clay subsoil. My
principal crop for the first ten years was hay.
Best yield per acre, 2 1/2 tons; average, 1 1/2 tans. Price realized for same, $20 per ton. Oats, best yield, 55 bushels per acre;
average, 35. Price received on average,
40 cents a bushel. Winter wheat, best
yield 34 bushels per acre; average, 25 bushels.
I have given considerable attention to raising of spring wheat. My smallest yield has been 15 bushels per
acre; largest yield, 28 bushels per acre; average 20 bushels. Peas average 20 bushels per acre, and they
have brought one dollar a bushel. Corn
does well: from 75 to 100 bushels of ears per acre. I cannot state definitely as to the yield of
potatoes. It depends so much on the
attention given to the destruction of the potato beetle. I believe that 300 bushels per acre can be
realized, with proper care and cultivation.
Grapes do well. I have four
varieties bearing, viz: Concord, Ionia, Wilder and Salem. I have a young orchard of 135 apple trees,
some of which have been bearing for five years: and they have borne every year
since they commenced. Wild land in this
vicinity is worth from eight to ten dollars an acre; improved land, from thirty
to forty dollars an acre.
Dated April 6, 1878 - Bartley DavisBartley Davis had less than a year to live from the date of this letter. I clipped the biographical sketch from the Portrait and Biographical Album of Mecosta County.
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