Important Suggestions to Farmers

Under the above heading, Dr. Charles Jewett, the Chemist, furnishes an interesting communication to the Iowa City Republican, urging upon farmers the necessity of diversifying their labors.  He says not a pound nor a foot of cordage should be imported by the people of Iowa.  Flax and hemp may be raised here in any quantity, and the machinery and buildings necessary are very plain, and cost little.  Our paper might all be manufactured here, and within the next six years all the course woolen goods needed for clothing, as well as carpets and woolen yarn.  Linseed oil might be made, too, enough for ourselves, and leaving a million of gallons for export.  His remarks on fuel merit attention.  He says:

“I wish however to direct those of your citizens who live on large prairies, distant from timber, and who have been driven to the use of corn as fuel, to the production of an annual plant for fuel, which will be found to be richer in combustive elements than corn, and which can be raised with as little trouble.  I refer to the Sun-flower.  Planted in hills like corn, or in drills, three and a half or four feet between the rows, and eighteen inches between plants in the row it will produce, on a patch of three or four acres, fuel sufficient to supply a family for a twelve month.  The leaves all fall from the stock and its branches, after being killed by the frosts of Autumn, and the stalks as well as heads, become quite dry.  They may be cut at the ground by one blow of a hatchet and laid upon a wagon and packed close in a wood house and there be kept quite dry for use.  A lad, whose labor would be of little value elsewhere, can cut them, piling the heads for winter use, while the stock will be found sufficient for cooking purposes in the warm season of the year.  The heads are quite heavy with seed, compactly set, which are far richer in oil than corn, and will be found excellent fuel.  Like all broad leaved plants, if we except the tobacco, it derives most of its nourishment from the atmosphere and does not, therefore exhaust the soil.  Unlike the stalk of corn, of which only the ear is burned, the entire plant may be made useful as fuel, and may be harvested and preserved with comparatively little labor.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, February 15, 1862, p. 2