290 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Acorns for Distribution. 

 Mr. Win. R. Prince, Flushing, L. I., sent for distribution acorns 

 of the following named trees: Quercus Cerris — Turkish Oak. A 

 splendid sub-evergreen tree, with beautiful foliage, and mossy 

 cups to the acorns. It attains to the height of 80 feet. Quercus 

 Peduuculata — Pedunculate Oak. A lofty tree, attaining to the 

 height of 100 feet, with beautiful foliage, and bearing its acorns 

 on long peduncles. 



Paradise Stocks. 



Mr. J. R. Neal, Croton, N. Y. — "Dwarf apple trees. I under- 

 stand, are produced by grafting upon the Paradise and Ducian 

 stocks. What are the Paradise and Ducian stocks?" 



Mr. P. T. Quinn. — They are a species of European crab-apples, 

 generally imported and kept by nurserymen for the purpose of 

 dwarfing larg-er sorts. 



Farmer's Revolver — Report of CoManTTEE on AoRicuLTURiVL 



Implements. 



The committee w^hich went to Millington, N. J., to look 

 at the working of Nishwitz's improvement in reaping machines, 

 had an opportunity of examining another important new invention 

 of Mr. Nishwitz, a singular earth-worker. An appropriate name 

 for it would be the farmer''s revolver. It is a double-barreled 

 six-shooter, and as efiective an implement of husbandry as the 

 revolver is of warfare. It is not a harrow, but it is a perfect 

 substitute for that unsatisfactory implement. Suppose you 

 imagine each of the twelve teeth in a triangular harrow, mounted 

 upon a wheel twelve inches in diameter, you will then have an 

 idea of the appearance of the farmer's revolver. These wheels 

 being set upon an angle to the line of draft, their sharp, drill 

 hardened edges, cut into the ground, turning it up like little 

 plow-shares. It mellows the surface of a recently-turned sod 

 better than any other implement the committee ever saw. It 

 never tears up a sod as the harrow does, but it mellows and 

 reverses the surface, putting it in a most admirable order for 

 wheat. For covering wheat or any sowed grain it is an excellent 

 implement, as it cannot draw it together as it does sometimes by 

 the harrow. Unlike that, this, while it mellows the surface, does 

 not pack the earth below. Made of a suitable size to work 

 between the rows of hard crops, this revolver would be a great 

 weed exterminator. 



