1883. Bea 5 Trans. N. Y. Ac. Sct. 
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, inno 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 the 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 : 
Deweylite, 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 found 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 
