32 
“Judging from the agricultural productions placed upon exhibition, we are of 
the opinion that uplands on the plains produce equally as good and heavier crops 
of grain than the low bottom lands. Also, that as fine garden vegetabies can 
be grown in the mountains, almost to the very foot of the snowy range, as upon 
the plains. These conclusions are arrived at from samples of wheat and corn 
grown upon the divide between the Platte river and Clear creek, in Jefferson — 
county, and specimens of turnips, potatoes, &c., from gardens as far in the 
mountains as the immediate vicinity of Georgetown, in Clear Creek county.” 
The cedars of Lebanen.—Rev. Mr. Jessup, a missionary from the United 
States, has discovered new groves of cedar trees, five in number, three of them 
of great extent, east of Ain Zabalteh, in the southern Lebanon. This grove 
lately contained 10,000 trees, and had been purchased by a barbarous sheik 
from the more barbarous Turkish government for the purpose of trying to extract 
pitch from the wood. ‘The experiment failed; the sheik was ruined, but the 
result was the destruction of several thousand trees. One of the trees measured 
fifteen feet in diameter, and the forest is full of young trees, springing up with 
great vigor. He also found two small groves on the eastern slope of Lebanon,. 
overlooking the Bukad above El Medrik, and two other large groves, containing 
many thousand trees, one above El] Barak, and another near Maasiv, where the 
trees are very large and equal to any others; all are being destroyed for fire- 
wood. Still another grove has been discovered near Diima, in the western 
slope of Lebanon, near to the one discovered by Tristram himself. 
The history of the potato —In a paper recently read by a Mr. Crawfurd in 
London on “the relation of plants to ethnology,” a very short but complete ac- 
count was given of the introduction of the potato into Europe. Te potato is 
still found on the western slopes of the Andes, the tubers, however, being no 
larger than the common filbert. Even the Indians, said Mr. Crawfurd, cultivated 
the potato before the arrival of the Europeans. It was first brought from America 
to Ireland, where it was cultivated in 1656; but it is said to have been intro- 
duced into Spain and Portugal even before that date. From Ireland it found its 
way to the Low Countries and to Germany, and from Spain it reached Italy and 
France. It is an object of cultivation in Asiatic countries only where Euro- 
peans have coli nized or settled, and there chiefly for their consumption, and only 
since the beginning of the present century. It is successfully cultivated in 
Australia and New Zealand, where there is no esculent farinaceous root at all, not 
even the yam, the taro, or the manioc. 
Quality of department seeds—A correspondent in Iron county, Utah, writ- 
ing relative to the quality of seeds distributed from this departm: nt, makes the 
following exhibit of the remarkable increase of wheat, oats, and barley: Ten 
ounces of spring Mediterranean wheat, sowed in drills on the 15th of May, and 
harvested in about 90 days, yielded 37 pounds, an increase of 59-fold; 8 ounces 
of white Swedish oats produced 76 pounds, being a yield of 152-fold; 1 ounce 
of two-rowed barley returned 15 pounds, or 240-fold increase. ‘The soil was a 
sandy loam, supplied with a liberal dressing of cattle manure ploughed in. “It 
is claimed that two crops of oats may be grown from one sowing, if put in 
early, and irrigated immediately after cutting the first crop. 
Cuming county Nebraska—The white Mediterranean (winter) wheat which 
you sent me in the fall of 1865 came to hand too late for sowing time, and, as 
winter wheat does not do well in this locality, I at once decided to sow it in the 
spring, and, if possible, make spring of it. 1 accordingly sowed it last spring. 
The result was gratifying ; the two-thirds of a quart sowed yielded three pecks of 
good wheat. ‘he white Swedish oats you sent me are a decided success. I 
raised over one bushel from the package—a little less than a quart—they are 
the best oats I have ever seen; are very heavy, weighing forty pounds to the 
bushel. . 
