422 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Raritan and Delaware bays, will have become one continuous 



garden. 



Nitre in Manure. 



Among the numerous questions for discussion were the following: 

 Does the farmer's manure heap ever become a nitre bed ? Can 

 it be made to become so cheaply ? Dr. Vander Weyde replied 

 that most of the fertilizers arc a combination of a base with some 

 kind of acid. All that a farmer has to do is to put wood ashes on 

 his compost heap to form nitre. The nitrogen in the manure heap 

 combines with oxygen to form nitric acid. Potash, he said, is one 

 of the strongest bases. In Germany and Belgium farmers mingle 

 their Avood ashes with their barnyard manure, and of this they 

 form nitre. No trees can grow when there is not a good supply 

 of potash in the soil. Ashes applied directly to the soil are too 

 strong as a fertilizer. They want an acid with the base, or potash 

 in the ashes. 



Rev. Mr. Bolton of Livingston county, New York, stated that 

 he had been accustomed to sow ten bushels of unleached wood 

 ashes per acre, on his meadows. On the same grass land, he sowed 

 also one bushel of gypsum. These articles were sowed early in 

 the spring of the year ; and he thought he doubled his grass crop 

 by the fertilizers thus applied. In his section of the country, 

 wheat is grown more extensively than grass. He stated that one 

 of his neighbors had produced fifty-nine bushels of wheat per acre, 

 by dressing the land with a compost of three bushels of wood 

 ashes and one bushel of gypsum, and one of salt, sowed broadcast. 



Empire Wind Mill. 



The superintendent of the Empire Wind Mill Co., explained the 

 merits of this mill, which stood on the platform, and made quite a 

 display. It is six feet in diameter, is so constructed as to adjust and 

 regulate itself, and will run a two-inch pump. Six sizes are made, 

 which cost from $60 to $1,200 each. Those costing from $150 to 

 $300, will cut fodder, winnow, churn, turn a grindstone, and run a 

 small pair of stones for grinding. The higher priced ones grind, 

 saw wood, and are most useful for pumping water for stock and 

 domestic use, and for railways and draining land. One of the 

 largest size has been in use at Southold, Long Island, for ten years, 

 and a report of how it is doing was promised for the next meeting 

 of the club. 



The chair thought the subject of wind power very important, 



