Solon Robinson said that about one-fourth of his arborvitas have perished, which at first he attributed to the effect of drought soon after they were planted last spring, but has since modified his opinion, upon finding so many fellow-sufferers. At Bridgeport, Conn., he saw last week a much larger per cent. of most carefully tended hardy evergreens in a dying condition. The proprietor attributed the loss to the long continued coating of ice on the trees and on the ground.

Mr. Carpenter said it was very desirable to know that strawberries may be planted even after they have blossomed. This is the season to make strawberry beds. I think they can be planted for several weeks yet, or at any time before they send out runners.

Rev. Mr. Weaver, of Fordham.-Is it better to transplant strawberries now than in the fall? I have prepared a bed by very deep trenching; first, through a foot of mold, then a foot of yellow clay, and then one or two feet deeper, to break a hard pan below, which I thought necessary to make a good job. Shall I manure the bed, and what with?

Mr. Carpenter. If set in spring, you will be sure of a good crop next season, but not so when planted in autumn. The ground Mr. Weaver speaks of is certainly well prepared, though too expensively for a large plantation. I would not use unfermented manure, but would use compost. I apply wood ashes, plaster, and some salt. In ground prepared like that spoken of, manure is less needed, for the roots will penetrate two feet deep.

John G. Bergen.-There may be places where it will pay to prepare strawberry plats three feet deep-it will not on such land as I cultivate on Long Island. There, if the soil is well prepared one foot deep, it is allsufficient; and, as a general rule, the expensive sort of preparation recommended will deter people from cultivating this fruit. They will say it is too expensive.

Mr. Carpenter.The soil of Long Island is very sandy and well drained; it is not necessary to trench land there, but in some locations where the land is heavy, I find trenching very advantageous. I have seen the roots of strawberry plants two feet deep; the land had been trenched and manured.

Prof. Nash. The best manure for strawberries is swamp muck and woods mold; and the best soil is sandy, if muck can be added. It attracts moisture, and renders the soil more retentive. Trenching may do in some places, but it is a great mistake to recommend it for all. It would not do on the prairies, where land is cheap and labor dear; while here, where land. is worth $300 an acre, and crops in proportion, expensive preparation of the soil will pay for such market crops as are usually cultivated near large cities. A great deal of our land is not plowed over three inches; when we say two feet I think we go to extremes.

Mr. A. S. Fuller.—Yes; and so will expensive manuring. As a general thing, farmers don't use half manure enough. Manure will pay for using anywhere, at its usual cost. I believe that I can use $200 worth of manure upon an acre of strawberries, and make it pay. But, as a general thing, I do not

recommend high manuring, because it requires a peculiar mode of cultivation, which but few will practice. It requires a renewal of beds every year. After the crop is gathered, the highly manured ones will grow very luxuriantly, and make a heavy crop of foliage to plow under in September, when new plants are to be set for the next crop. Thus a large crop may be grown at less labor and cost, and as much got from one acre as is usually got from four. In New Jersey strawberries are generally grown without manure, at the rate of about twenty-five bushels an acre. If land is highly manured, and the strawberry vines allowed to run year after year, it will become a nest of weeds and grass, and produce but little fruit. Rev. Mr. Weaver.-If you have hard pan you must go below that.

Mr. John G. Bergen.-It is one thing to talk about high manuring near cities, but quite another thing to tell how to do it in the country. Everything must be adapted to the locality. I use $50 an acre worth of manure, and it pays; and I know market gardeners who use $100 worth per acre, and it pays, but it won't pay everywhere and upon all crops.

Prof. Nash.-No, it won't pay to use $30 worth of manure upon an acre of wheat that would not sell for that amount, as many acres do not; but it will pay to manure any crop so as to grow it up to a certain point, at which it is more profitable than above or below. It usually costs as much labor to grow twenty bushels of corn upon an acre without manure, as it would sixty bushels with manure. I have not so much experience in the advantage of manuring strawberries as I have corn. With that I have proved that $10 worth of manure brought $30 less value of corn than the same land and labor with $40 worth, and although the manure was but barely paid for by the corn crop, it was doubly paid for in succeeding crops.

Mr. Carpenter.-A neighbor of mine has been experimenting with manures; he begun at a cost of $5 per acre, and has now got up to $50 per acre, and he says this pays him a good per centage. I think I can get as much corn off three acres as many of my neighbors get off ten acres.

Mr. Fuller. Our farmers do not manure half enough; the great error is in cultivating too much land. Put the manure and labor you intend for one hundred acres on twenty-five acres, and you will find it pays better than by cultivating the whole.

John G. Bergen.-I have grown the Scotch runner or Crimson Cone strawberry, by measure, at the rate of 500 bushels per acre, by high cultivation, but I doubt the profit of trying to make such big crops. I doubt whether it has been demonstrated that very high culture will pay upon strawberries.

Mr. Fuller said that he had grown at the rate of 600 bushels per acre on a small plot of the Bartlett strawberry, and by the same mode of treatment 400 bushels of Triomphe de Gand. The best treatment I have ever given strawberries, when grown in hills, was to stir the surface a little every day. Some varieties grow best in stools; the Wilson, for instance, and others, do best when they all run together. I have great faith in lightly stirring the soil among strawberry plants. The best Delaware grape vines I ever grew I produced by stirring the soil regularly every Saturday evening with a rake, and I believe it would pay to rake the ground among the strawberry plants every day, and cut off all the runners. I can grow

strawberries by this process upon poor soil, without manure. I am satisfied that surface soil stirring is the most important of all modes of cultivation. But in a strawberry bed you must be careful not to dig deep.

There is no process that can be applied to the cultivation of cabbage and cauliflower equal to stirring the surface every day.

Mr. Carpenter.-I fully agree with Mr. Fuller. I have found great advantages by constantly stirring the soil. Adjourned.

JOHN W. CHAMBERS, Secretary.

May 12, 1862.

Prof. J. A. Nash in the chair.

BENEFITS OF BIRDS TO FARMERS.

Wm. S. Carpenter said that he wished to call the attention of farmers at this time to the subject of birds and their benefits, particularly swallows, which, as a general thing, have been driven from barns because those of modern date are built so tight that the birds cannot get inside to build their nests. Sometimes they are allowed a sort of precarious chance under the eaves, but they do not multiply as they did in olden time when allowed free access to the interior.

It is stated that a swallow devours several hundred insects a day, which are its sole food, and if so they ought to be encouraged by all farmers.

Alpha Brown, Eaton, Madison county, sends the following communication, dated May 1, 1862 :

“I notice the Farmers' Club frequently discusses insect-destroying birds; but there is one I consider worth to the farmer a half dozen of others that are held in high repute. I mean the crow. When a boy I was kept with gun in hand to watch the corn field and keep the crows off, and have killed more than any man ought to before learning their habits. First, if crows can get worms or soft food of meat kind, they will not eat grain; but if hunger compels they will eat corn, young turkeys, and lambs' eyes, and take goslins, or anything to keep from starving. For twenty years I have kept them from pulling corn, simply by feeding them corn sown broadcast on my corn field; just enough, so there is feed at all times. Last year I planted two acres, and drilled in one for fodder. It was sward ground, where the worms had destroyed the grass, and the gray worms were so thick we frequently hauled out five or six in a hoeful of dirt, and my men said the worms would eat up the corn. As soon as we harrowed, and the soil was opened, a few crows came one night to pick up worms, and I kept them undisturbed, sowing a pint of corn every few days to keep them in food, and by the time the corn was up they had exterminated the worms so they cut but few spears of corn.

"I think they destroy more worms than any bird we have; I have watched them for over forty years to learn their habits, and for over twenty years have never been troubled with their pulling corn, and my experience has led me to this conclusion: if the crows can find worms enough to eat they will not eat corn, and if short of food they will not pull corn if they find it

on the surface. I have fed about fifty through March on deacon calves, or what you call Bobs, and they have been busy since snow went off picking worms out of my meadow. I suppose you are aware that the gray worm lays in the roots of the grass at the surface, in the spring, when the snow goes off.

"Another subject I will mention is gapes in chickens. We have lost most of our early chickens with gapes, and I have opened a good many after they died, and took out the worms, and I think I recognized at once the angle worm, such as I had seen by thousands in moist weather in May and June in the dirt about my buildings, from the size of a hair to the size of a pin, white, and from three-quarters to one and a half inches long. I took out nine from one that lived three weeks after taken, last season, that were two and a half inches long, and showed plainly what they were. They had filled the pipe completely full, all lying straight side by side. Those having an interest in the subject will examine further and apply the remedy, which is to put the chickens on a floor strewed with sand and lime, or ashes.

Early chickens won't pay here if not troubled with gapes, as chickens coming out in July will grow in half the time, and are not troubled with worms, as it is then dry and the worms have left the surface for moisture below. Perhaps you will get my ideas, and it may set one a thinking, and you might ask of any one if they ever knew a crow to give their reasons for doing it."

The Chairman.-There is another benefit of crows to farmers; they drive the small birds from the forest to seek shelter near our dwellings.

Mr. Carpenter.—I prevent crows from pulling up my corn by stringing white twine across the fields, but it must be put up before the crows get in the way of coming into the field.

Mr. John G. Bergen.-I have found all sorts of scarecrows ineffectual, but tarring corn would prevent crows from pulling it. It is easily done by dissolving a pint of tar in warm water enough to cover a bushel of seed corn, stir it until every grain is covered, then add ashes until the corn is separated. I have never been troubled when I use tar.

Prof. Nash.—If the crows won't eat the dry corn sown for them on the surface, as some farmers allege, I would recommend planting a row very shallow between the permanent rows, so that it would vegetate and be eaten by the birds, so that they would not touch the other.

Edwin Goodell, Birmingham, Michigan, writes to one of the members asking information:

"I am always much interested in the discussions of the American Institute Farmers' Club, but there are many topics you do not, as I observe, touch upon.

"I am ignorant as to the culture of many garden vegetables. For instance, I have just received celery seed from the Patent Office; also asparagus and salsify, but do not know how to treat them.

"I wish your time would allow you to write a work on the kitchen garden, in the luminous style of 'Strawberry Culture.'

"What is the best work on grape culture? I have several varieties from the Patent Office, viz., Isabella, Catawba, Rebecca and Diana.

Grapes do well here, and if I were to get a few vines additional to the above, what kind or kinds shall I purchase?

"I noticed a recipe of yours, reported in the proceedings of the Club, for curing hams, and upon trial we find it excellent.

"Now, is there a way to corn beef so that it shall keep sweet through the summer without salting it so as to render it tough and unpalatable? I have always cured it like hams. It is tender and good but will not keep long in warm weather without scalding the brine, and this seems to injure the meat.

"What is the best plant for a reliable hedge fence? And where stone is not to be had, and timber is getting scarce, would you advise an attempt at such a fence?

"One more inquiry and I will try your patience no longer. Would you recommend planting a small orchard of dwarf pears for market purposes, thinking that with proper culture they might prove a profitable investment?

"I am commencing farming on a worn out but naturally first rate soil, twenty miles northwest of Detroit, Michigan, much in debt, and many a time would give my last dollar for the opinion of a man who knows whereof he affirms."

Mr. Lawton answered that Buist's Kitchen Gardener is a good work for such a man, and so is a small book published by Fowler & Wells.

Mr. Pardee said: I have sent him Dr. Grant's catalogue as the best work on grapes, and I also recommend him to plant standard pears. About beef-curing, I think that the receipt mentioned will do it by adding more salt, and, perhaps, more sugar.

Solon Robinson.-Evidently this gentleman has not read all the proceedings of the Club, or else he would not ask what grapes to plant. That question was most fully answered a few weeks since. As to a hedge plant I cannot recommend a single one.

The best remedy is to dispense with fences and keep the cattle out of the highways.

THE NEW LAW ABOUT STOCK ON THE HIGHWAYS.

The allusion to cattle on the highways elicited a spirited discussion upon the new law of the State of New York, which absolutely prohibits stock running upon the highways, and authorizes every man to shut up any animal found at large, and give notice to a justice of the peace or commissioner of roads, who will assess a penalty, and order the animal sold if not redeemed. This law was highly approved by all but one man from New Jersey, who denounced it as an act of oppression to the poor man, and that sort of ad captandem argument always resorted to by the advocates of universal liberty to cattle, hogs, geese and goats.

Solon Robinson.-It would be far better for all who own land to pay the expense of keeping a cow for every poor man in the community, than to allow them to run in the highway; and as to the argument that a poor man has a right to feed his cow upon the grass that grows upon the roadside, that is not so, for no man has any more right to the grass on the outside of my fence than he has to that on the inside. The public have the right of