the plowing early enough for the above purpose, I plant all I can in the spring, and cultivate and hoe often, for I am a Connecticut Yankee, and believe a hoe is an indispensable article, even in Minnesota. What I cannot plant I summer-fallow. If farmers of our State will pursue this course, I believe they will be pleased with the results."

He also says that "this wild buckwheat, and a medley of other foul seed that gather in the waste-boxes of wheat-cleaning machines, are often bought by our millers for the purpose of grinding into Indian flour whenever they get the contract.”

TREE COTTON.

Mr. Prince called the attention of the Club to the fact that parties are advertising seed of the tree cotton, from South America, and representing that it will produce hardy trees, bearing cotton in this climate. This is simply impossible; just as impossible as it is to acclimate any other tropical plant, such as oranges, bananas or sugar cane. Men ought to use their brains, if they have any, before they invest money in such undertakings. Every dollar spent for this seed will probably equal $20 thrown away. It is a vain experiment to try to grow cotton in this latitude.

THE BLACK-CAP RASPBERRY.

Mr. Prince contends that the "Improved Black-Cap raspberry," advertised by Mr. Doolittle, is nothing more than any one can get himself from the fields; that all the improvement comes from cultivation.

Mr. Carpenter says that he has faithfully tried cultivating the Black-Cap, and has failed to make it produce anything equal to the vines obtained from Mr. Doolittle. The improved raspberry is a real improvement, and grows twice as large as the wild, and more juicy and rich.

WHAT IS THE BEST TREATISE ON FRUIT?

Mr. Solon Robinson-The question is asked me almost every day. Will this Club advise me how to answer? I will read one letter, as a specimen of several others I hold in my hand. A friend writes from Hartford, Conn., as follows:

"Will you please inform me what you consider the best treatise which has been published upon the general cultivation of fruits in this section of the country?

"Several years since I planted quite a number of pear and other fruit trees, with which I took considerable pains, intending to have the work done in the best manner. Although I cannot call the result a failure, I am convinced it should have been much better; and the feeling which I then had, that there was a want of some good practical treatise containing plain directions upon the subject, has been fully confirmed, both by my experience with those, and with a small vineyard since commenced. Some time ago you recommended Dr. Grant's Catalogue of Vines as containing the best published directions for the cultivation of the grape. I obtained one, and became much interested in the subject, and succeeded with a small vineyard. He is now publishing another work devoted to fruit

culture. What is your opinion or that of your Club about it? The public are interested in this question."

Dr. Trimble. This is a very sensible letter, and pertinent inquiry, but I don't know about the Club recommending any particular work. I have heard a good deal about Dr. Grant's new paper called Landmarks, but have not read it enough to give an opinion, though I think it is undoubtedly the best adapted to the wants of fruit-growers of any periodical that is published.

Mr. Prince said that Dr. Grant was very capable of giving instruction about grape culture, and that his paper, called Landmarks, was wholly devoted to that subject, and that there was no work upon general fruit culture. He recommended Downing, and Hovey's magazine, for general cultivation, and Grant for grapes.

Mr. Solon Robinson.-The gentleman certainly has not read late numbers of Landmarks, where "How to plant trees" is fully discussed and illustrated by engravings. I have a letter from Charles Downing, who, incidentally speaking of Dr. Grant's new enterprise to endeavor to enlighten the public, says:

"I would add that I think the Landmarks a valuable publication, and when the public is educated up to its standard, it will be highly prized. It is, however, ahead of the people, and not sufficiently condensed for most readers."

Mr. Robinson recommended that a committee be appointed to consider and report these inquiries about works upon fruit culture, but the Club thought it would be a thankless, if not a hopeless undertaking; that, if Dr. Grant is publishing the best American work upon fruit culture, the people will soon find it out, and appreciate the undertaking.

Mr. Carpenter said that he approved of giving the public all the information possible, yet it was a fact that about as many succeed who never read as there are among those who have access to all the books.

Prof. Mapes.-Books are for those already "skilled in the art." To understand what is written upon fruit culture, one must already be a good culturist.

Dr. Trimble-I think reading, talking or teaching of very little importance, if ahead of the people. Here I have been for twenty years studying the habits of the curculio, until I know all about that insect, and I have been trying to teach people how to avoid its ravages, so as to grow plums, but I fear that my teaching has made but little impression.

Ald. Ely said that the Doctor was mistaken, for he had lately overheard a man in the cars telling how he read in the report of these meetings what a doctor from New Jersey said about killing curculio by spreading a sheet under the tree and jarring it, and then killing the insects on the sheet; and that he followed the advice, and got for the little trouble as fine a crop of plums as he ever saw, while his neighbors got none.

PRUNING GRAPE VINES.

Mr. Wm. R. Prince.-I should like to make a few remarks on the subject of pruning grape vines-the method adopted by ignorant men of pruning the vines to eight feet. No American vine should be allowed a less space

than twenty feet, ten feet each side of the stem. This practice was brought to us from Europe. The experiments made in Cincinnati by Mr. Buchanan showed conclusively that this short pruning was perfect butchery, and was the reason why the fruit turned black and dropped off the vines, and by adopting the long pruning system we would be able to get good fruit.

REMEDY FOR CUCUMBER BUGS.

Mr. Jabez Hawley, of Westfield, Chautauqua county, N. Y., gives the following sure remedy:

"I take young sprouts of sumac, about the size of my finger, two inches long; punch out the pith; fill one inch of the center with cotton wool; turn into each end, say a teaspoonful of spirits turpentine, and place two in each hill. The bowl of a pipe or a small phial will answer, but it will be a little better to have both ends open."

Mr. Carpenter said that boxes around the hills was the best remedy for bugs that he had ever tried. If the fence is six inches high the bugs never get over.

Ald. Ely.-A man at Norwalk, Conn., where I live, buys of the grocers all the empty cheese boxes, and takes out the heads, to use for this

purpose.

Prof. Mapes.-The best way is to make the boxes of boards, cut beveling, so that the boxes would pack together, and one man can carry a large number, which is very advantageous.

ABOUT CHURNS AND BUTTER WORKING.

Mr. L. D. Rouse and others, of Upper Lisle, Broome county, N. Y., want to know if any members of the Farmers' Club have had sufficient experience in the use of D. W. Seeley's Scientific Churn to recommend its general use. Will it make as much butter, and of as good quality, from the same milk or cream, as the common dash churn?

Mr. Robinson. That question is easily answered by a simple "No." Nor will any other patent churn ever invented.

Prof. Mapes.-A few years since, when engaged in selling such things, I undertook to decide this question practically, and which of the patent churns was best. After trying a dozen, I found that all rapid production of butter injured the quality, and that all churns required the same amount of power to produce butter; and that if time was gained, it was at the expense of power, unless power was gained by machinery, or time gained by heat, or some other appliance, at the expense of quality. I came to the conclusion that the most economical mode was to apply power to the dasher churn, and that good butter could not be produced with less than ten minutes' churning of the cream, at the proper temperature of about sixtyfive degrees.

Mr. E. Wilbur, of Albion, N. Y., gives his method of working butter by a wooden lever and block fixed to a board made convex instead of concave, as in a wooden bowl, the buttermilk running off and along a gutter through a spout into a pail. He says:

"I am not a farmer, but have been; but in the latter part of spring or fore part of summer I purchase of the farmers some 250 pounds of good

sweet grass butter-enough to last my. family the year round. It is then thoroughly worked by this break; the buttermilk all worked out; a little crushed sugar (and salt if necessary) worked in; then packed tightly into clean stone crocks; a cotton cloth laid on the top; a little salt with some saltpeter sprinkled on the cloth; then about one inch of good brine poured on, and we have sweet grass butter all the year. Another item, not unimportant to many, is that in the fore part of summer butter is only worth about one-half or two-thirds as much as in winter."

Prof. Nash-I perfer October butter to that made earlier, and I prefer to pack it in large masses. A white oak barrel is better then any other vessel, but the barrel should be filled at one time. I believe the larger the mass of butter, the better it would keep.

PRESERVATION OF TIMBER.

Dr. Lewis Feuchtwanger.-During a recent visit to California, I examined the wharves and piers erected in San Francisco; and also in traveling through the mining districts of the State and Nevada Territory, I was principally impressed with the rapid destruction of the planks, joists and posts of the timber by the dry rot; and having conversed with many persons on the subject, learned that they sympathized with me in the ultimate disastrous condition of that disease of the timber, and from the daily reduction of the old trees for building purposes, the time may not be far distant when the present high price of timber would be doubled, and difficult to obtain at that. I was informed by a gentleman interested in the largest hydraulic gold mining company of the State, that he was obliged to replace, every two years, the props in his ditches and flumes, and is subject to very high expenses where he requires a large amount to be hauled from considerable distances. I have reflected upon the matter in my leisure moments, and concluded to make known a few remarks on the subject, which appear to me of importance.

The dry rot attacks mostly the white and sugar pine, the various species of oak, and some species of cedar; it is a fungus known in botany by the name of merulius lachrymous, which appears at first in delicate white filaments, spreading toward the surface and interlacing with one another, and it appears to commence on the outside by agency of atmospheric causes of change, and to gradually work inward. It no doubt affects timber in warm, close and moist situations, and appears to be nourished by the petrefactive fermentation of the juices of the plank; and Pliny, who seems to have been acquainted with this cause of the decay of timber, observes that the more odoriferous a piece of timber is, the more durable and resisting is it to decay. He also knew that the part of the timber most subject to rot was the sapwood, outside of the heart, and recommended the cutting of this away in squaring the stick. For the last century, the British and French navies have suffered much by the dry rot in their vessels of war; and instances are recorded where several ships were sunk, the timbers of which were afflicted by the dry rot; and in the mines of France, timbers used for props have been seen to crumble together within a year or a year and a half. I observed, on the Sierra Nevada, a large fresh-hewn pine tree, of four feet diameter, completely taken hold of at the inner crosscut

by the dry rot, as if worms had been gnawing at it. It is also observed that frequently the surface remains perfectly sound, while the whole central portion is rapidly decomposing. Wherever the air can circulate freely around the timber, and it is protected from moisture, or where the air is entirely excluded, as in tight structures of masonry, or beneath the surface of the water, particularly salt water, or where the wood is buried among antiseptic matters, as peat, tar, etc., all these circumstances favor the preservation. Many methods have been adopted to preserve timber from decay, and I will enumerate the principal remedies resorted to:

1. Though seasoning in dry air causes the destructive juice to be hardened, it is an imperfect mode of protection, for it may remain harmless as long as the timber remains dry, but when exposed to damp situations the moisture re-dissolves the juice, and the fungus soon makes its appearance again.

2. The seasoning in water has the advantage of removing the juice and fungus and washing it off.

3. The Earl process was introduced on the South Carolina railroad in 1836, by steeping the timber in a hot solution of copperas.

4. The Kyanising process was recommended by Sir Humphrey Davy as the best remedy, and consisted in the steeping of the timber in a concentrated solution of corrosive sublimate, or deuto chloride of mercury.

5. Sir William Burnet has introduced into the British navy the chloride of zinc as the most powerful antiseptic, and he forces this substance by hydraulic pressure in timber, from which the air is first extracted.

6. De la Boucherie, a celebrated French chemist, published, twenty years ago, a work, in which he strongly recommends the pyroligneous acid and pyrolignite of iron for the prevention of dry rot.

7. In 1832 I applied the liquid silex or soluble glass, by order of the government, to many spiles and piers at the Brooklyn navy yard, which proved highly successful. It is still my opinion that the soluble glass may be very beneficially introduced for the protection of timber, which can, at a trifling expense, be rendered fire and water proof at the same time. The posts, planks, joists, or railroad sleepers, or any other cut timber, is put in close steam-boxes, and after destroying the organic matter by boiling, the soluble glass is introduced, and the pores are filled up by the mineral substance.

Fences, wooden buildings, bridges, and wooden warehouses, may effectually be secured against fire at a trifling expense, by painting the outside with a silica paint, so that rain, snow and sun will not affect them.

SIX BEST VARIETIES OF GRAPES FOR OUT-DOOR CULTURE. Mr. Prince recommended the following as the best six varieties for outdoor culture in this latitude, viz.: 1st, Black Imperial; 2d, August Coral (bright red); 3d, Catawissa, large size, good flavored; 4th, Clinton (colors well); 5th, Hartford Prolific, musky if plucked before ripe, and the grapes drop on wet land; 6th, Adirondac is a good grape; when exhibited at Boston, September 24th, it was unripe, and therefore improperly condemned. Adjourned. JOHN W. CHAMBERS, Secretary.