140 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



APPLES AND PEARS. 



Mr. Carpenter exhibited the Summer Pippin apple, and the Ott, 

 Brandywine, Tyson and Russet pears. The Madeline is one of 

 the earliest pears, but is astringent. 



MANURES. 



Mr. Robinson exhibited a specimen of a manurial substance 

 produced from butcher's oflfal, and which it is proposed to sell 

 for $8 per ton. 



Mr. Carpenter referred to tafeu, fish guano, and other similar 

 manures, as being of very doubtful utility. The only manures of 

 the kind he had found always reliable were Peruvian guano and 

 bone dust. 



Mr. Fuller said it w'as unsafe for the Farmers' Club to recom- 

 mend any special manure, no matter how valuable it might seem,. 

 for a few tons would be made according to the sample, and the 

 rest would be worthless. Bone dust and Peruvian guano are the 

 only ones worth hauling, and we may even be swindled in bone 

 dust, for an agricultural firm in this city has been selling for bone 

 dust a mixture three quarters of which is vegetable ivory, and the 

 other fourth perhaps bone and perhaps something else. He had 

 tried a ton of the phosphates this year, with no results. These 

 manures might be valuable if there were honest men engaged in 

 their manufacture. Poudrette, for instance, properly made would 

 be valuable, but as now made, using lime to expel the ammonia, 

 it is of no value. 



THE APHIS. 



Mr. Morris, of New Jersey, stated that the oats were destroyed 

 by the insects in his neighborhood. Upon examination he had 

 found that although the principal part of these insects were the 

 aphis, yet there was another insect with them, which he exhibited. 



STRAWBERRIES. 



Mr. Robinson read an inquiry as to the proper method of rais- 

 ing strawberries for the market. 



Dr. Trimble obtained a full crop the first year by setting out 

 the plants a foot apart. 



Mr. Gore. — I have had excellent results setting them twenty 

 inches apart. 



Mr. Carpenter. — The method depends upon the variety and the 

 soil. I think most of our native seedlings will bear in masses. 

 The Bartlett, I think, will bear closer growing than any other. 

 I have seen them as close as they could stand, and bear a fine 



