PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS* CLUB. 207 



one-fourth more nutriment. Most of the corn for hominy comes 

 from Maryland, where they raise it to great perfection. It is 

 important to get corn that will ripen early. The golden drop is 

 10 or 12 days earlier, from being selected for a series of years by 

 taking the earliest ears, from corn producing two ears to the 

 stalk, for seed. Now the stalks generally produce two or three 

 ears. 



BELLIGERENT BEES. 



Dr. Trimble read from a newspaper an account of seventy 

 swarms of bees engaging in a war which only ended from the 

 approach of night, and remarked that he presumed the cause to 

 be a scarcity of food in that neighborhood, and that they had 

 undertaken to rob one another. 



Mr. Robinson, — What becomes of the bees of a w^eak swarm 

 when a strong one robs it ? The bees and honey will all disap- 

 pear in a few hours. 



HOTZ PEDAL PUMP. 



Mr. Hotz exhibited a modification of his pump, so that it may 

 be Avorked by hand instead of by the feet. In other respects it 

 is similar to his former plan, heretofore referred to a committee 

 of the club and reported upon favorably. 



THE YAK ACCLIMATION. 



Dr. Holton, as an instance of the recent acclimation of an ani- 

 mal, by the Society of Acclimation in France, read the following 

 paper : 



Marco Polo, the great voyager of the middle age, mentions the 

 Yak of Thibet, an animal, Avhich, to the inhabitants of the eleva- 

 ted table land between the Himalaya and the Kuen-lun moun- 

 tains, is as useful as is the camel in Arabia or on the burning 

 deserts of Africa. It serves for draft, for riding, or for a beast 

 of burden ; it furnishes milk, wool, and an excellent meat. 



This useful animal was seen only upon its cold, native plateaux, 

 averaging from 10,000 to 12,000 feet above the level of the sea. 

 No specimens, even, had reached the museums of Europe, till upon 

 the suggestion of Isidore Geoffrey St. Hilaire, a long time pre- 

 occupied with the grand thought of acquiring and acclimating 

 this animal of ardent utility, the French Consul at Shanghai, M. 

 de Montiguy, having obtained a herd of twelve sent them to the 

 garden of plants at Paris, where I had the pleasure of witnessing 

 their arrival in the month of April, 1854. 



