FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE 47 



practice, pluck the lower leaves of the vegetable dur- 

 ing its four growing months for succulent food for 

 cattle, and that the root will keep sound, after harvest- 

 ing, for eight months, thus supplying the cattle the 

 rest of the year. Hence, the intimation is that a 

 liberal cultivation of this root will offset and defeat 

 scarcity in other sorts of feed during the round year. 



Much anxiety was felt during the period now re- 

 ferred to as to a probable early scarcity of fuel, and 

 premiums were offered by the society for the raising 

 of forest trees. At the beginning of the century the 

 highest premium was awarded to Col. Robert Dodge 

 of Hamilton, for raising, from the seed, 4000 oak trees. 

 In 1816 an elaborate article on the preparation and 

 use of peat was published in the Journal. The editor, 

 in a preface, remarks that much suffering experienced 

 during the late war might have been avoided had a 

 knowledge of this fuel been generally diffused, and he 

 has the satisfaction of being able to say that "in many 

 places through which the Middlesex canal passes, peat 

 bogs were found from 20 to 50 feet deep. There is 

 undoubtedly enough good peat, without using the top 

 of the ground which is loose and spongy, to last the 

 country for centuries." The arrival of anthracite coal, 

 about the year 1830, eventually solved the fuel prob- 

 lem. 



In 1800 the first seed-sowing machine was exhibited 

 and recommended by the trustees. In the following 

 year it was announced that experiments had proved 

 that the exchange of seeds and roots between distant 

 places or different climates was not of special benefit, 

 but that the selection of the earliest and best seeds, 

 from the most flourishing stalks, and planting only the 

 best roots, were of importance. In 1814 machines for 

 raising water for irrigation, and others for threshing 



