Letter from Champaign.
We are having some very sharp winter weather, and sleighing as uninterruptedly good since the 20th of December as I ever remember. This morning, January 5th, the mercury reported 28 degrees below zero at 5:30 a.m., and 20 degrees below at 10 o'clock. This is the coldest since January 29th, 1873, when 36 degrees below was recorded at the Industrial University here, and 42 degrees below by the spirit thermometer at one of the Jacksonville institutions. But the wind was west at that date, and it is so to-day, showing our coldest weather comes from that direction rather than from the northwest or north. The explanation I suppose to be, those great fountains of cold storage, the Colorado mountains, lie west and southwest of us, and are several hundred miles nearer than the lower peaks and ranges northwest.
It is an interesting and important truth to know at this time that an unexpected source for seed corn has been discovered here at home. It has been ascertained by experiment and investigation that the early frosted corn, which has been allowed to stand in the field, has a sound germ, and though shrunken, will make fairly good seed, whereas corn which was not frosted till late in October, and ripened in most respects, save drying out, is wholly unfit for seed, having had the cells of the kernels ruptured by the freezings it has been subjected to. This rupture of cells the grain of the frosted corn escaped, having parted with the surplus water of vegetation before hard weather set in. However, the early frosted and shrunken cane fit for seed may be confined to this county or neighborhood, or a narrow area, and therefore I advise every one who thinks of making use of it to ascertain for himself, by the usual methods, whether the germ is sound or not.
Several parties have written me—one from Missouri, another from Indiana, and a third from Kentucky, that they have seed corn for sale, cheap and in quantity. I have no doubt of it, and I have accordingly advised each to advertise it in The Prairie Farmer, if they are really desirous of selling, stating briefly what variety, where grown, and at what price. I should be glad to advertise it for them gratuitously, but the contract of The Prairie Farmer with its contributors contains a clause to the effect that "they shall neither use its columns to grind their own axes nor the axes of anybody else." With the recourse of early frosted corn to go to, and the assistance of appropriately selected seed from abroad, the gross mistakes and disappointments of 1883 are pretty certain to be avoided in 1884.
No doubt many who are more or less familiar with the Reports on Hog Cholera in the official publication of the Department of Agriculture, ask themselves why Dr. Detmers is singled out by Frenchmen as the sole authority on swine diseases, when his colleagues of the commission, Dr. Salmon and Laws went nearly as far as he did in their extravagant statements. But the prominence Dr. Detmers has obtained in the estimation of Frenchmen is now explained in this: At a late sitting of the French Academy of Sciences that eminent savant, Pasteur, referred to him and his investigations in flattering terms. Giving an account of the discovery of the microbe which causes the rouget of swine in France, Pasteur said: "Respect for historic truth compels me to state, however, that in the month of March, 1882, the microbe of the rouget was discovered at Chicago, in America, by Professor Detmers, in a series of investigations which did great honor to their author." With the indorsement of one of the most eminent scientists in the world, before a body equally distinguished, Dr. Detmers may find some compensation in being singled out as the scape goat for an unfortunate commission which has cost the country many millions.
B.F.J.