No. 244.) 297 



es of five or ten minutes, speak of facts, of opinions freely, but never 

 pretending to decide questions! for is it not obvious that those who 

 should attend one meeting, could not be supposed to know every 

 thing bearing on the question under discussion, and other members 

 of another meeting might differ from them very materially. The 

 most able writers are by no means agreed — and again, the peculiar 

 cases of soil, climate, culture, &c., may cause great difference in re- 

 sults from any one system of agriculture. It is true, that so far as 

 science has been applied, there are some settled points as to the pe- 

 culiar adaptation of soil, &c., to certain crops, chemically consider- 

 ed. Mr. Skinner has mistaken our object in this. We are to collect 

 fads for the public to try and decide. Mr. Wakeman called for the 

 reading of the first rules adopted by the Club, to show this. The 

 rules were then read. 



He once advised our holding of Fairs once in three years! That 

 course would have destroyed the whole system. The lapse of time is 

 too great, and moreover, here the prodigious energies of mind and 

 body produce annually abundant novelties to attract the admiration 

 of a mighty public. He doubts the popularity of our proposed Ag- 

 ricultural College and experimental farm. We do not entertain a 

 shadow of doubt, for we have found among the thousands who have 

 been asked to petition for it, not one in twenty to decline it. We 

 beg for good advice from the wisest men; but we wish those coun- 

 sellors to be well acquainted with our regulations, and the reason for 

 their adoption. 



William Serrell presented a communication, in which he repeats 

 the advice to blind horses in cases of fire, as has long been practiced 

 and particularly in London, as to horses employed to drag engines to 

 conflagrations. That it is believed that the eye of a horse receives 

 light from a conflagration with eight ti.i ■■ greater intensity than the 

 eye of a man. 



Dr. Underbill of Croton Point. — Mr. Skinner has appealed to me 

 and asked, whether the undrained lands of the state of New- York, 

 do not amount to half the state of Rhode Is^r- ' In ■':•¥, I say 

 that I believe that Mr. Skinner spoke within v..)Ui..iS. li.v ■ vamps 

 of New- York are equal in extent to the whole state of Rhode Island. 

 But, nevertheless, I think that seven-eighths of the old States of the 

 union, do not need the system of draining as practiced in England and 

 some parts of Europe. Our soil is far hotter than, theirs. No man 

 can admire more than I do the intelligence of the English writers, 



