AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 129 



wKolesome wine — currant wine — instead of getting driuik and dying as 

 they do now from poisoned stuff called beverages. Whilst this then beara 

 the name of American Institute, let us by every argument we can use 

 encourage the increased production of American fruits. We have no need 

 of sending to Zante for currants, Madeira for grapes, or France for wine ; 

 or should the folly be any longer tolerated, except by a nation of niuueys, 

 of importing currant jelly. 



The Chairman expressed his gratification in hearing Mr. Erhard's account 

 of this superior currant. 



GOOSEBERRIES. 



Andrew S. Fuller, of Brooklyn, exhibited some gooseberries that would 

 not discredit an English gardener. He said they grew upon the bush at 

 the rate of eighteen to each foot in length, the berries being about one and 

 a half inches in length, and just acquiring a claret color on their skins. 



Mr. Lawton exhibited white gooseberries of great size, pure from all 

 mildew and abundant on their branches. They averaged full three inches 

 in circumference. He also exhibited branches of our old fashioned small 

 red currant, some crystal beautiful white currants, some full sized black, 

 and some champagne currants, the latter distinguished by a tinge of lake 

 color very beautifulh'. Some persons seem to think that the club wastes 

 time on the small fruit. Those persons may eat their roasted mutton and 

 venison ivithout any currant jelly. 



Mr. Fuller. — We occasionally hear from distant fields, that what the 

 club found fine in a fruit, does not prove so there. Certainly not. It is 

 necessary for us to know that place and circumstances not only exercise 

 deep influences on plants, but on animals too. Each must raise that which 

 his place best suits. No wise farmer will plant his corn in the swamp, nor 

 his water cress on dry land. 



Joseph C. Canning, agent of the National Fertilizing Company, at 37 

 Fulton street, New York, presented boxes of their new fertilizer for dis- 

 tribution among the members, with the request to try it efi"ectually. It is 

 manufactured by a pupil of the celebrated Liebig. 



Thomas W. Field, of Brooklyn, stated that he had received a box of 

 fruit — beautiful ripe peaches, apricots, Bartlett pears, &c., from Col. 

 Richard Peters, who grows fruit at Atalanta, in Georgia, where they ripen 

 two months earlier than here. He exhibited the pears, which were larger 

 than the same generally grown here. 



J. A. Wagener. — The inventor of an approved harvesting machine, 

 sends from the township of Homer, in Champagne county, in the State of 

 Illinois, samples of Hungarian grass and clover. The grass resendjles 

 timothy, is nearly five feet high. The clover five and a half feet high. 

 The grass is of six weeks growth. There is one farm here loith tioo thou- 

 sand acres of it in clover and timothy. 



Mr. Field presented his volume on the pear, for which the club gave him 

 a unanimous vote of thanks. 



[Am. Inst.J 9 



