358 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE- 



O'Neil's Hay Fokk, Scoop and Scales. 



Mr. J. K. O'Neil, Kingston, Ulster Co., N. Y., exhibited an 

 improved buy fork, which can be sold for $8. 



He also exhibited a scoop and scales combined — a common tin 

 scoop, which has a round handle in two parts. When the scoop 

 holds sugar or flour, the handle is divided, and one part suspends 

 the scoop, and presents common spring -steelyards ready to weigh. 



Fuller & Co.'s Strawberry Vases. 



Mr. Solon Robinson, from H. A. Fuller & Co., Norwich, Conn., 

 exhibited specimens of strawberry vases, made of porous earth- 

 enware, like a flattened tunnel, to be used in protecting and for- 

 warding the plants. Mr. Robinson said he would like them much 

 better if the price were $3 a hundred instead of $12. 



Mr, Thos. Cavanach. — Forty years ago there was a like inven- 

 tion in two halves. They would be useful where there are a few 

 plants, but would be too costly for field culture. 



Mr. P. T. Quinn. Uje straw, at 8 cents a bushel, is just as 

 good, and, besides, will manure the ground. 



Breeding of Swine. 

 Mr. S. Edwards Todd read the following paper on this subject: 

 It is well iinown to farmers who are versed in the science of 

 hoo-oloo-v, that the pigs of a well-bred and well-fed sow, after 

 they are a few days old, instinctively choose their places at the 

 udder of the dam, each little pig selecting its own peculiar teat; 

 and when they take their food, each one, amid the rush and rough- 

 and-tumble, fetches up in his proper place with as much accuracy 

 as a well-trained family of children come to the dinner-table. 

 The smallest, the runt, or what in common parlance is called the 

 "titman," finds himself crowded to the last teats at the rear end 

 of the udder. If the number of pigs be greater than the number 

 of teats, the weakest pig cannot be reared. We have in mind an 

 instance in which the brood of pigs numbered one more than the 

 teats on the udder of the sow. The smallest pig had no place at 

 the dinner-table. After a few days the little thing, w^ofully ema- 

 ciated and sickly, died of utter starvation. In every brood of 

 piirs, in every flock of lambs, in every herd of neat cattle, in every 

 drove of horses, in every nest of )>irds, in every brood of domestic 

 fowls, in every ear of grain, Dame Nature makes provision for the 

 propao-ationtof its kind, by concentrating the excellences of that 



