DOMESTIC EXTRACTS. 325 



cultivation of potatoes which he had imported from Madagascar. 

 A letter from Brussels, addressed to the Club, was read, and con- 

 tained an account of the annual meeting of the Agricultural and 

 Floral Society of Brussels. Some statements were then made re- 

 garding the effect of galvanism on grape vines, which had been 

 found to flourish wonderfully under its influence. A lelter was then 

 read from Lieut. Marshall, U. S. N,, of U. S. Ship Portsmouth, 

 dated at Rio Janeiro, detailing the results of his discoveries and 

 investigations in regard to a new and valuable plant, the New- 

 Zealand flax : he hopes to be able to send to the Institute a speci- 

 men of this plant. An invitation was received from the Westchester 

 Horticultural Society, for a visit from the Farmers' Club, or a de- 

 legation from it, yesterday, and another from Flushing to-day : both 

 were accepted, and delegates appointed to each. The subject of the 

 preservation of fruit trees then came up, and was treated de novo in 

 all its branches. Tiic chairman, Col. Clark, having stated that coal 

 tar had been found very eflicacious employed about the roots of 

 peach trees, suggested that this remedy be adopted and recommended 

 by the Club. Dr. Underhill was afraid of doing so, as he knew that 

 the coal tar, or residuum of bituminous coal, was a very powerful 

 agent, and, in his opinion, must prove injurious if not positively 

 destructive to the trees. In England it had been the practice many 

 years to saturate fence posts in this bitumen, while hot, so as to 

 render them impervious to moisture ; and in the operation, many 

 persons contracted violent inflammations in their faces, by the mere 

 exhalations wliich escaped from it. Col. Clark withdrew his sug- 

 gestion, and thought it better that farther experiments should be 

 made before the Club endorsed the coal tar. He, however, alluded 

 to the residuum produced by the Gas Works in Centre-street, where 

 anthracite coal was used, and the carbureited hydrogen disengaged 

 by the agency of fluid rosin. The Gas Works in Eighteenth-street 

 were carried on with bituminous coal : of the tar thus produced, he 

 knew nothing. Later in the discussion, a gentleman mentioned that 

 he had kept a large peach orchard of over two hundred trees per- 

 fectly free from the grub for seven or eight years, by the use of 

 hard soap freely rubbed upon the body and hmbs of each tree. A 

 committee was then appointed to consider the project of publishing 

 in a volume the proceedings of the Club for the past year. 



The regular topic of discussion was then announced — the cul- 

 tivation of corn ; and Dr. Field was called on. He stated that he 

 had made close observations during the four or five years of his 

 farming experience, and had become satisfied that the old system of 

 cultivating corn was decidedly erroneous, although he would not 

 deny that farmers were in the habit of producing very good crops in 

 old times. During his first year he had followed the old system, and 

 he did not obtain so much corn from ten acres as he now got from 

 two. The old way was to begin by ploughing ; then to hoe ; then 

 plough and then hoe again, and this sometimes done three times 



