294 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. [Jfin., 



at it. Cut them off every time they show their heads, and 

 one summer will destroy your Canada thistles. I have had 

 much experience with them, and know this to be a fact. 



Mr. . The father of Mr. Scoville had a piece of 



Canada thistles that extended into his garden from the street. 

 He ploughed the piece repeatedly, week after week, and 

 sowed corn, and let his hogs root it over, and they would eat 

 the thistle roots as deep as they could dig them. After 

 practicing this method four or five years, he thought he had 

 exterminated them. This must have been over seventy years 

 ago. If you go up the street to-day, you will find Canada 

 thistles on that very ground. His son has endeavored to 

 exterminate them, but there they are, and they will stay 

 there as long as this earth remains. 



Mr. Hyde. I believe that Canada thistles thrive on some 

 soils as they do not on others. I have a little patch of Canada 

 thistles, that I cut three times a year: I don't know that I 

 have diminished them, but they do not increase. 



Mr. Hunt. If you will cut them just before they blossom, 

 and, if possible, just before a rain, too or three cuttings will , 

 almost invariably kill them. 



Question. Will Mr. Meech give the history of the quinces 

 upon the table, and tell us how they can be kept so as to 

 preserve the color ? 



Mr. Meech. The history of those quinces is involved in 

 some obscurity. An old gentleman, early in the settlement 

 of Yineland, came from Hartford to that place, and having 

 had a quince tree in his grounds, he brought it along, and 

 put out cuttings in a little corner of his yard. 1 purchased 

 twenty-five little trees of him, which I set out. I cultivated 

 them until the trees began to bear, and then I found that I 

 had a rare treasure in the old man's trees. That is all I can 

 tell you in regard to the history. The method of preserving 

 them is one of great simplicity. I arrived at it after trying 

 a number of methods. It is nothing but salt and water, and 

 it preserves specimens better than anything I have been able 



