308 [Assembly 



its extreme delicacy, it may be written upon with ink upon both 

 »des of a sheet. 



George E. Pomeroy, editor of the Detroit Daily Tri- Weekly, and 

 Weekly Tribune, sent, free by express, to this club, a box of 

 plums, asking our opinion of them. He says that they were 

 raised by Mr. Briscoe, of Detroit, " by budding a Bolmar upon 

 a Mediterranean." 



Mr. Crouch, of England, was requested to speak as to the 

 Cycloidal Forking Machine, patented by Wilson, &;c., of London. 

 He said that trials had been successful on land which had been 

 trodden lifty years, which at the first trial was forked up by this 

 machine in coarse lumps; but upon going over it a second time 

 was made as tine as sand. It was equal to the forking of six acres 

 in a day. The circles, furnished with curved teeth or prongs, 

 could be put on one .ixle, as many as was deemed convenient for 

 operation. Mr. Crouch had no doubt of its ultimate success in til- 

 ling the great majority of soils, any imperfection in it will soon 

 be remedied by ingenious mechanics. Of course its operation in 

 soil having much root or fibre or stone is less perfect. 



Mr. Maxwell enquired of Mr. Crouch, whether it was deemed 

 likely to displace the plow 1 



Mr. Crouch — It will not entirely — for instance in sod. 



Mr. Robinson — I know something about stone land. I was 

 born in Connecticut. I saw it once proved, that stones upon the 

 surface protected crops in a drouth. It is now a debatable point, 

 whether cleiring land of stones improves its productiveness. 

 Upon the subject under discussion, what we most need is a law 

 in every State to promote irrigation — a general law, to authorise 

 the use of running streams to make corn as well as to grind it. 

 We want that old fogy law abrogated, which was made before 

 the invention of steam engines, and which forbids the owner of a 

 farm to divert a running stream from its channel on his own land, 

 whereby the volume of water may possibly be lessened at some 

 antiquated old grist mill, scarcely worth three fourpence-ha'penny 

 pieces, at some dam below. It is that law that effectually dams 

 all efforts toward a general system of irrigation in this drouth- 

 parched land. 



