452 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. " 
soils it may be necessary to loosen the earth about the stem of each 
plant. As a preventive, water the plants once or twice with the decoc- 
tion, after setting out. The application has also a good manurial effect. 
Fifty years ago.—At the Karmers’ Convention held at Lewiston, Maine, 
in January, 1870, Hon. Robert Martin, of Auburh, seventy years of age, 
said that “ fifty years ago the farmer thought if he sold a two-year-old 
heifer for enough to buy a barrel of flour he was doing a good business. 
Now, a good two-year-old heifer sells for enough to buy four or five 
barrels of flour.” 
Seed-ruising, &e., at Hrfurt, Germany.—A recent visitor at Erfurt, Ger- 
many, states that he found 143 acres in and around the city devoted to 
the production of flower seeds, and 136 to that of vegetable seeds, the 
market being chiefly in the larger German cities. The amount of glass 
covering houses for the culture of exotic plants, and the hot and cold 
beds, is 250,000 square feet. More than 300,000 catalogues and price- 
lists are annually printed for the flower and vegetable trade; the num- 
ber of wholesale catalogues being 50,000, of which about one-half are 
prepared for England and America. The making of linen and paper 
bags for seeds gives employment to many poor people in the surround- 
ing villages, involving an estimated annual outlay of $7,000. Several 
small villages are sustained chiefly by the manufacture of flower-pots for 
the Erfurt trade, and about 600,000 of these are annually planted with 
3,600,000 stock-gilly flowers of many varieties and colors—a specialty 
for which Erfurt has been celebrated since 1810. 
RECENT FARM EXPERIMENTS. 
WHEAT. 
Fertilizers on wheat.—Mr. R. W. Pruitt, of Salem, Alabama, reports an 
experiment with wheat on two acres of common oak and hickory land, 
which had been in cultivation ten years, the last year in potatces. At 
the time of experiment the land was not capable of producing more than 
seven or eight bushels of wheat per acre, without manure. In the latter 
part of November, 1869, the ground was broken up in the following 
manner: A furrow was opened to the depth of about four inches, with 
a turning plow, which was followed by a subsoil plow, running nearly 
eight inches deep; and the field was then cross-plowed with scooters, 
and laid off with a small scooter in furrows ten to twelve inches apart, 
leaving the surface in small ridges. December 3 he sowed broadcast 14 
bushel of Clayton wheat, 30 bushels of cotton seed, and 140 pounds of 
Peruvian guano, per acre, and dragged the ground level and smooth 
with a good home-made brush. The wheat came up “in beautiful 
drills,” and grew so rapidly that on the 1st of February he turned in 
his calves, and grazed it. The field ripened in the latter part of May, 
showing a solid mass of wheat about five andone-half feet high. Sixty- 
four bushels of excellent wheat were harvested from the two acres, and 
11 to 16 bushels were lost by lodging, by ravages of birds, &c. Expenses: 
three plowings, $7 50; laying off, $1 25; 60 bushels of cotton seed, $10 80; 
280 pounds guano, $17 50; hauling out and strewing seed and fertilizers, 
$3;-cutting, binding, and thrashing, $10; total, $50 05. Receipts: 6 bush- 
els wheat, $128; 6 loads of straw, $12; value of pasturage of calves, 
$5; total, $145, showing a profit of $47 474 per acre, besides the im- 
proyement of the soil. 
