732 [Assembly 



questlonally pernicious to animal life, but not to A'egetables, for to 

 some of them Sulphur is necessary in their constituent parts. It is 

 essential to mustard, cabbages, turneps, and a large class of crucife- 

 rous plants, &,c., &c. 



BERMUDA SQUASH. 



Mr. William Graves, of Bedford, Long Island, presented a speci- 

 men of this very fine vegetable to the fair of the American Institute, 

 and gave the following account of it: 



Bermuda squash; planted the latter part of June; ready to pull 

 the last of August. 



The seed was preserved in wood ashes all winter; laid in the 

 earth about two feet, covered over with a little hay and earth. 

 When it was planted, in June, the wood ashes were put in the earth 

 with a little poudrette mixed with it. In Bermuda, two hundred 

 squashes have been raised from two seeds only. They increase the 

 vine by taking off two or three joints and planting them afresh, that 

 makes two vines extend over a lot one hundred feet by twenty-five. 



Raised in 1847, at Bedford, Long Island, by William Graves. 



Mr. Meigs said; At the late fair at Castle Garden, we had the 

 pleasure to see a contrivance for expelling the moisture from grain 

 or flour, W'ithout in the last degree altering the pure natural' taste of 

 the article. This is a machine heated by steam, which gives out all 

 the required heat without the possibility of injury. It leaves the 

 grain, meal or flour, in perfect purity, and when once packed in bar- 

 rels or otherwise, it is almost impossible for them to receive any injury 

 from without, so that they may be transported to any climate or any 

 distance, without deterioration. And although this new process is 

 of very great importance to the export of bread stufls to foreign na- 

 tions, sometimes immensely so, yet we hold it to be of still greater 

 importance for the preservation of the staff of life from all must, 

 moulder, or other injurious alteration of its native properties, for 

 domestic use. 



Heretofore the breadstuffs have been put up in a moist condition, 

 and millions of barrels of them have suffered great loss by the press- 

 ure of the moisture in them. The truth is, that when put up dry 

 they will last as long as the grains of wheat in the Catacombs of 

 Egypt, whence we now have grain which vegetates again after the 



