PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 255 



This correspondent taxes credulity too much in asserting that 

 the barometer will indicate the duration of a storm. 

 Adjourned. 



November 6, 1866, 

 Prof. S. D. Tillman in the chair ; John W. Chambers, Secretary. 



Sorghum Culture in China. 



The Chairman read an article upon sorghum culture, from a 

 British Agricultural Journal, said to have been written by an 

 American in China, detailing the mode of culture by the Chinese. 



Mr. N. C. Meeker. — The article is interesting as a statistical 

 paper, but quite useless to sorghum cultivators in this country, 

 because they have gone entirely ahead of the Chinese. 



The Illinois people could teach the Celestials how to grow cane 

 and manufacture it. There are some good things in that paper, 

 and some statements that are not true. One of these it the state- 

 ment that there are two paper mills in this country, running entirely 

 upon sorgo stalks for the stock of their paper. 



There is one matter about the Chinese culture that should be heed- 

 ed everywhere. That is the care they use to prevent hybridization. 

 The seed is liable to degenerate when near poorer sorts of sugar 

 cane, or other varieties of sorghum, such as broom corn, Guinea- 

 corn, Doura-corn, and some say with Indian corn. The Chinese 

 method of saving sorgo seed should be followed here. They 

 select the best heads, which are cut with two feet of the stalk, tied 

 in small bundles and hung up to cure in a dry place. 



A New Fuel. 



Mr. Colvert, New York city, called the attention of the Club 

 to specimens of a new fuel, or new way to utilize coal dust. He 

 mixes ten per cent, of asphaltum and petroleum with ninety per 

 cent, of coal dust, and presses it into cakes, by any convenient 

 method, making them as solid and more combustible than anthra- 

 cite. A letter from E. C. Bissell, Winnebaug Mills, Connecticut, 

 indorses this composition as a valuable fuel. One of its advanta- 

 ges, Mr. Colvert contends, will be in compact storage on ship 

 board. He estimates the cost of manufacture at the mines, where 

 coal dust is valueless, at $2 a ton. 



Mr. Solon Robinson said, then it will cost $5 a ton, with freight 

 added. Can it compete wit i coal? 



