Yet this evil had its compensating good. Our corn and potato crops were very fine, so that our farmers have learned a lesson in the value of having diversity of crops as a leading feature in their farming system, and be it remembered that without system there is no successful farming. The following statement is taken from the immigration pamphlet, issued by the Minnesota Board of Immigration for 1878: OATS. Oats is peculiarly a northern grain. It is only with comparatively cool atmosphere that this grain attains the solidity, and yields the return which remunerate the labor and cost of production. The rare adaptation of the soil and climate of Minnesota to the growth of this grain, is shown not only by the large average, but the superior quality of the product, the oats of this State being heavier by from three to eight pounds per bushel than that produced elsewhere. The following is an exhibit of the result for the several years named: No. bushels Average yield Year. No. acres sown. produced. per acre. 1868 212,064 7,831,623 36.00 1869 278,487 10,510,969 37.74 1870 339,542 10,588,689 31.02 1875 401,381 13,801,761 34.38 1877 432,194 16,678,000 37.75 The following is a statement of the product of oats in Minnesota, compared with that in the other States named: Average Bushels to per acre. each inhabitant. Ohio, average of 11 years 23. 9.17 Iowa 28.30 17.80 Minnesota 37.70 23.88 CORN. The foregoing exhibits abundantly sustain the extraordinary capacity of Minnesota for the production of those cereals which are best produced in high latitudes. Our State is often supposed to be too far north for Indian corn. This is a great mistake, founded on the popular fallacy that the latitude governs climate. But climates grow warmer towards the west coasts of continents; and although its winters are cold, the summers of Minnesota are as warm as those of Southern Ohio. _The mean summer heat of St. Paul is precisely that of Philadelphia_, five degrees further south, while it is considerably warmer during the whole six months of the growing season than Chicago, three degrees further south. The products of the soil confirm these meteorological indications. The average yield of corn in 1868 was 37.33 bushels per acre, and in 1875--a bad year--25 bushels. In Illinois--of which corn is the chief staple--Mr. Lincoln, late President of the United States, in the course of an agricultural address in 1859, stated that the average crop from year to year does not exceed twenty bushels per acre.