418 



acre. The juice yields most satisfactorily. The amount of sugar made 

 last year was 500,000 pounds. This year it is expected to reach 1,125,000 

 pounds. This will employ the mill about five mouths. The remainder 

 of the year will be occupied in refining imported sugar. The Sacra- 

 mento Company will soon be ready for operations. This company ex- 

 pect to realize about 400 tons of beets this year. 



Warm water for plants. — Mr. R. G. Williams, of Vermont State 

 Normal School, writes us upon this subject as follows : 



I see some remarks in your monthly report upon the benefit of watering house-plants 

 with warm water. Last winter we had about one hundred plants in the house, and 

 usually gave them warm water, and very frequently water that was much too warm 

 for the hand ; some water at or very near the boiling point, has been poured into the 

 saucers of the pots and just on the sides. We have about forty persons in the family, 

 from different ])arts of the country, and their testimony is that they never saw so fine 

 geraniums, heliotropes, fuchsias, verbenas, passion-flowers, oleanders. These plants 

 show very marked improvement ; others have flourished finely under the treatment. 



All house-plants are better for being watered with water several de- 

 grees warmer than the atmosphere in which they are grown. 



Wheat in Tennessee. — A correspondent at Florence Station, Euth- 

 erford County, Tennessee, says : 



Good seed-wheat, adapted to our climate and soil, will be of inestimable value to us. 

 Our State average is only about 7.10 bushels per acre. This year the yield will not 

 average 21 bushels per acre, owing, I suppose, to peculiarities of the season. My usual 

 average is 22 bushels per acre, but this year I got but 4 bushels per acre from good 

 land, well prepared, well put in, and with good seed. Ked Mediterranean produced 

 nearly double the yield of the best white wheats. The straw was absolutely worth- 

 less, except for bedding stables. 



Plowing in January. — In the report of the farm-visiting commit- 

 tee of the Washington County Pennsylvania Agricultural Society, it is 

 stated that Mr. James W. Dickey, of Donegal Township, plows in Jan- 

 uary for corn, if it can be done, even if snow is on the ground. He 

 once i)lowed down five inches of snow, and the crop was one-fourth 

 greater than that on the same kind of ground plowed the last of March. 

 Mr. Dickey showed to the committee a field of 35 acres, which he had 

 in corn in 1809, and which yielded 3,200 bushels shelled corn, and 250 

 bushels buckeye iiotatoes. This ground was i^lowed shallow, about four 

 inches deep, and received four strokes of the harrow ; marked one way 

 3J feet wide, planted in hills 2^ feet apart, leaving three stalks to the 

 hill ; commenced to work as soon as up with a light cultivator, next 

 used the double-shovel ; worked four times, and hoed every time. 



Wine by steam. — At the wine-making establishment of Don Mateo 

 Keller, in Los Angeles, California, a lO-horse power steam-engine is 

 being used to drive a grape-stemmer and crusher of sufficient capacity 

 to stem and mash 50 tons of grapes per day. The machine is a Los 

 Angeles invention. The grapes are cleaned, stemmed, and mashed 

 without breaking the seeds, and dropped into a large trough beneath. 

 A press is to be added to the machine next year, which will extract the 

 juice from the grapes as fast as they are mashed. 



Beet-root sugar. — It is stated in Wood's Monthly Scientific List 

 that there existed in Europe, at the close of last year, 1,507 beet-root 

 sugar-works, of which 483 belonged to France, 310 to the German Con- 

 federation, 283 to Russia, 228 to Austro-Hungary, 53 to Belgium, 42 to 

 Poland, 20 to the Netherlands, 4 to Sweden, and 1 each to Italy and 

 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 



