1883. 17 Trans. N. V. Ac. Set. 



from lot to lot as they disposed of exhausted soil for fresher. Thus in 

 New York, the oldest farms are now, after being occupied for a cen- 

 tury, in no better cultivation than those in Iowa, which have been 

 tilled but ten years. So far, there has been no incentive to thorough 

 cultivation of the soil by the farmers, from the fact that they can sell 

 their farms after exhaustion and buy virgin soil farther West at a 

 much less price. After our people shall have reached the limit of 

 migration they will return to the older soils, and better methods will 

 come in vogue. 



However, he had noticed already some improvement in methods of 

 cultivation. Ohio used to be the greatest wheat-producing State, and 

 the wheat belt was largely occupied by a race of farmers who had 

 migrated from Pennsylvania and worked their Ohio farms more 

 thoroughly and intelligently. Even within his own remembrance, the 

 yield had run down from twenty-five bushels to tlje acre to half that 

 quantity. Yet since then the processes had been improved by greater 

 intelligence, and the yield had been considerably increased. 



The experimental farms in Germany and other countries are doing 

 excellent work; but they will only be properly appreciated in this 

 country hereafter. There is a good time coming to the agricultural 

 chemist, when there shall be a real demand for his best work. From 

 the ignorance and apathy still prevailing, our agricultural schools have 

 been for the most part failures ; but, with the exhaustion of the public 

 domain, with its virgin soil, the farmers will be compelled to improve 

 their methods of cultivation. 



Mr. George F. Kunz then exhibited the following series of 

 minerals : 



Dewey life, from the Cheever's iron mine at Richmond, Mass. This 

 mineral is of rare occurrence there, in white masses, which resemble, 

 and have been mistaken for, meerschaum, with occasional spots of 

 yellow serpentine. 



Aragonite (Flos Ferri), from the vicinity of Rapid City, Dakota. 

 It is fo^und in large groups in veins many inches wide, and equals the 

 specimens from Styria in beauty, but its twisted stalactites are thicker 

 than those of the latter locality. 



Zircon, from Ceylon. A cut gem, weighing seven and one-eighth 

 karats, of a light blue color by day and light green by artificial light, 

 with an intensity and fire approaching that of a diamond. 



Perofskite, from Magnet Cove, Arkansas. The mineral occurs loose 

 in the soil in isolated crystals, or attached to groups of magnetite 

 crystals. The original bed appears entirely decomposed, but the 

 specimen exhibited was a mass of calcite enclosing scattered crystals 

 of perofskite and magnetite. This gangue resembles that of the Rus- 

 2 



