AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 373 



Pumpkins, Squashes, Broom -Corn Seeds, Weeds, etc. 



Professor Storer has also analyzed several specimens of 

 pumpkins and squashes, and finds them, on the whole, quite 

 rich in nitrogen. He considers the pumpkin as "competent to 

 supply a good part of the albuminoid matters which corn-stalks 

 lack." Professor Storer also gives a large number of analyses 

 of seeds of broom-corn, of weeds occasionally used as human 

 food as the dandelion, nettle, common plantain, purslane, 

 and pigweed and of blue-joint grass and reed canary-grass; 

 for the broom-corn seeds are inferior to oats, etc., as food for 

 stock, because poor in albuminoids though rich in carbohy- 

 drates. The weeds have considerable fodder value, but are 

 unfit for cultivation because they are inferior to the plants 

 with which they would have to come in competition. Still 

 when gathered, as they often are, they ought to be saved and 

 fed rather than composted, burned, or thrown away. The 

 blue-joint grass was poor; but the reed canary-grass proved 

 much better than was expected, is measurably rich in nu- 

 tritive ingredients, and "as a substitute for our wild bog 

 grasses it could doubtless be grown with advantage in num- 

 berless localities in this country " {Bulletin of the Bussey 

 Institution, ii., 51, 81, 115, and 130). 



Sugar-Beet Culture and Beet-Sugar Making. 



The attempts in this direction in the United States have 

 not thus far proved strikingly successful, though favorable 

 reports come from California and elsewhere. One great 

 trouble has been the putting - up of costly factories before 

 the supply of beets good enough to pay for the working 

 was made sure of. 



Mr. H. C. Humphrey, who has made this subject, from the 

 chemical standpoint especially, a study for several years, 

 in this country and in Europe, has joined with Mr. Joseph 

 Wharton in a very extensive experiment upon the estate of 

 the latter in Balsto, N. J. The raising of the beets is being 

 first tested, though a small experimental factory for making 

 the sugar has been erected. Concerning the prospects of prof- 

 itable manufacture, Mr. Humphrey makes estimates in brief 

 as follows: A manufactory to consume 15,000,000 pounds 

 of beets in one hundred days would cost about 60,000, 



