22 ; 
CORN FOR FUEL. _* Bee 
Nemgha County, Nebraska.—As corn is only 12} cents per bushel it will not pay for 
marketing. It is being fed extravagantly, as well as being used for fuel. 
AGRICULTURAL CHANGES IN OREGON. 
Clackamas County, Oregon.—The luxuriant grasses of former days in Willamette Val- 
ley have been eaten out to a very great extent, and stock-raisers are compelled to 
drive their cattle east of the mountains to find grass sufficient to make the business 
profitable ; many have been driven from this county. A principal reason why hogs 
have decreased in numbers is the lack of suitable range. In former years we had an- 
nually heavy crops of acorns. There was also growing in great abundance, in marshy 
Jands, a kind of root or bulb called by the Indians “ camas,” (Camassia esculenta,) of 
which hogs were very fond, Cultivation and the hogs have conspired to root out the 
camas, and the acorn crop has failed for the last fifteen or twenty years; why I cannot 
‘tell. Moreover, before steamships and railroads were the order of the day in this eoun- 
try we had no market for our surplus wheat; the best we could do was to turn it into 
bacon, then haul that to the mines. But now these things have all changed; the oaks 
bear but few acorns, the camas are about all gone, steamships and railroads carry off 
our surplus grain, and hog-raising does not pay. 
RUSSIAN MINERAL PHOSPHATES. 
The following is an original translation of an account of the deposits 
of phosphate of lime in Central Russia, by Alexis Yermoloff, in the 
Journal @ Agriculture Pratique : 
Since the great importance of phosphate of lime has been demonstrated by science 
and in practice, increased interest has been given to the discovery of beds of this 
precious material. Hence we have decided to break the silence hitherto kept in regard 
to the Russian deposits, and beg herewith to lay before the reader a succinet account 
thereof. 
_ The geologists who explored Central Russia in the first half of the present cen- 
id remarked the presence of a dark unerystallized stone, the origin and charae- 
ter of which seemed unknown, and which some of the most eminent, such as Sir R. 
Murchison, called simply a ferruginous mineral. Around the towns of Koursk and 
Voroneje these curious deposits were studied with care. Although the stone had been 
used from time inimemorial for building and paving, it was only in 1858 that the first 
analysis of it was made by Professor Chodnef at St. Petersburg. 
This analysis showed the stone in question was composed of phosphate of lime and 
magnesia joined with the oxides of iron, alumina, and silica. Shortly after, Claus Guil- 
lemin, a French engineer, and many other less distinguished chemists made new anal- 
yses of this stone, the results of which agreed on the main point of the uniform pres- 
ence of a large quantity of tribasic phosphate of lime. In 1566, Professor Engelhardt, of 
St. Petersburg, was invited by the government to explore these deposits, to which publie 
attention had been just called, and determine their extent and richness. From these 
investigations, in which the writer had the honor to assist, we possess more precise 
notions of the extent, character, and geologic) conditions of the fossil phosphates of 
Russia, which I am certain will be interesting to your readers. 
The rock in question is known in Russia under the name of “ samorod,” or natural 
stone. It is most common in the cenomanien beds or formation of greensand, but 
occurs likewise, though in smaller quantities, in the Jurassic, tertiary, aud even in the 
silurian. In the cretaceous formation the beds are commonly below the white chalk; 
elsewhere it is discovered above the greensand, containing a quantity of green grains 
of silicate of protoxide of iron, known under the name of glauconie. In other places 
nodules of phosphate are found on the surface of the soil, scattered in masses through 
the arable land. In Middle Russia the cretaceous formation makes a sort of basin, ‘of 
which only the north side has been explored, and it is precisely where it gives place 
to the Jurassic and Devonian, that the richest deposits are found. 
The extent of country between the Dnieper and the Volga embraced in the prinei- 
pal phosphatic zone is immense, including not less than 20,000,000 of hectares. —It is 
difficult to form an idea of the riches locked up in this deposit, which is however not 
the only one in Russia. So many other beds have been discovered that we do not be- 
lieve it an exaggeration to say that Central Russia rests upon enough phosphate of 
lime to supply Europe, so inexhaustible are ae supplies of this article. The western 
Adie. 
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