280 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Kavanach, of Brooklyn ; Mr. Leonavd, Mr. Chambers, D. C. Robinson, 

 Mr. Eoberts, Mr. Wright, Chilson, Dr. Grant, of lona ; Dr, Griscom, Dr. 

 Ward, of Jersey ; about ninety in all 



Robert L. Pell in the chair. Henry Meigs. Secretary. 



The Secretary read the following translations, &c., made by him from the 

 last works received from home and abroad, viz.: 



[Le Bon Jardinier Almanach Ilorticole for 1859. By Vilmorin. 1,555 pages, with somo 



illustrations. Paris. 



From this valuable work, just presented to the American Institute by 

 the author, we translate the following, viz.: 



THE WEATHER. 



While ive are tuaiting for meteorology to become a science it concerns 

 every farmer and gardener to study, carefully, the weather of his own loca- 

 tion, that he may work profitably. He should note down, daily, such 

 changes as occur there. Common sayings and proverbs, repeated with so 

 great confidence, are pure prejudices which long experience has not sanc- 

 tioned ; they are not worthy of faith. 



DURATION OF VITALITY OF SEEDS. 



Wheat — germinating power very short. That of France and middle 

 Europe, in a warm season, when the grain is completely matured, only 

 three or four years. The wheat of Algeria and of the south of Spain, has 

 germinated after nine years. The seed was from Abyssinia ; but of these 

 kept ni7ie years o7ily one or two out of one hundred^ germinated, and their 

 plants were miserable, and killed by rust before the grain ripened. From 

 nine years to the thousands of years of the mummy wheat is a very long 

 step. Those who are the most strongly inclined to believe, are obliged to 

 suppose that its preservation is due to the painted mummy cases where it 

 is found ; the absence of air, of too much humidity, or too great desicca- 

 tion, and to temperature, of very slight variation. The vapor of the bitu- 

 men is injurious to the grain. I do not believe that the ancient mummy 

 wheat can germinate. Those who have believed it must have been 

 deceived. To satisfy myself, I baked soil in a bread oven, fo.r six hours, 

 so that no seed could possibly grow in it except those I planted. Mummy 

 wheat would not grow in it. My precaution was cimsed by the result of 

 my experiments on ^I^gilops. I planted wheat in 16.3 pots of baked soil. 

 I found, still, two wheat and one rye plants. Lastly, as to mummy wheats, 

 the oldest of them received and circulated by the Horticultural Society of 

 Paris, is, the Ble dc Miracle — miraculous wheat — Triticiim compositum 

 variety still groiving in Egypt, and which, on account of its strange 

 growth, is now found in all the collections of grain. 



THE HALTICA. [Tvrnip Flea.) 

 IMake a little car on wheels, suited to the drills ; smear it with tar or glue ; 

 draw it through the field ; the flea jumps and is caught. Immense num- 

 bers are readily destroyed by it. This flea gnaws the cotyledons, it makes 

 a sieve of the leaf, and its larva), which come a month before it, are almost 

 as injurious. Steeping seed in tobacco, &c., have all been tried, but there 



