No. 244.] 399 



A neighbor of mine has recently imported from England, glass 

 milk pans. They say there that the wooden vessels are not good for 

 it; that the glazing of the earthen ware is injured by the acid of 

 the milk; that metallic pans give an unpleasant flavor to the milk. 

 That tb.e glass blowers of our country may be induced to make such 

 pans, I place one here for their observation, imitation, or improve- 

 ment. 



The President. — I desire to call your attention to another matter. 

 Some time since I saw in a Delaware newspaper, " A farmer in 

 Delaware took one yard of British cotton, called Ohio extra sheet- 

 ing, which weighed a quarter of a pound, the sizing or starch being 

 extracted by washing, it lost in weight one hundred and eighty-four 

 grains." 



In this short extract are visible some points very essential for our 

 country. The United States produced last year, about two and a 

 half millions of bales of cotton; these bales are, on an average, of 

 about four hundred pounds weight each. If this cotton was manu- 

 factured into cloth heie, it appears that it would require for its siz- 

 ing, two millions and a half barrels of flour, each barrel of flour re- 

 quires five bushels of wheat; we might then have fifteen millions of 

 yards of cotton cloth. It is believed that the Lowell factories con- 

 sume annually more barrels of flour than were exported from this 

 country before the recent famine in England; to which must be add- 

 ed the quantity called for in manufacture, the increased consumption 

 of flour for the labor it employs.. 



Mr. Meiffs read some translations — Annales De La Societe Cen- 

 trale D'Horticulture De France. Sept. 1848. 



Butter Bean of Riga. — We have given some notice of this vege- 

 table in the preceding reports. We shall content ourselves at pre- 

 sent with giving our assurance that it merits general recommendation, 

 on account of the abundance of its product and its generally admit- 

 ted good qualities. It may be gathered from July to October. The 

 pods when green are very good. When at maturity the beans are of 

 a deep violet color. They are good to eat all wintei, soaking them 

 in water before they are cooked, and then they are little inferior to 

 fresh beans. The substance of them is better than other colored 

 beans. They are quite green in the inside, when cooked. They 

 ought to be in every garden. W^hen considered in. comparison with 

 the translucent bean of E. Lefevre — which they much resemble — 



