146 Transactions of the American Institute. 



the plant will no longer flourish. This is true of all plants. The 

 point therefore to be investigated is, what are these elements, and 

 how may they be replaced when exhausted? This science teaches, 

 and this Club should develop these facts for the use of the public, 



Mr. Horace Greeley. — We are a great way off from this degree 

 of knowledge. Agricultural chemistry does not tell us just pre- 

 cisely what elements have been extracted from the soil by any par- 

 ticular crop, and precisely how to replace them. One hundred 

 years hence these things may be possible. Ten years ago 1 could 

 raise a good crop of peaches in Westchester county, but now it was 

 impossible either on the same or on adjoining grounds. The whole 

 neighborhood has become unfitted for peach growing. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble, New Jersey. — I know a man of the third 

 generation of peach growers. He pm-chased a farm of 100 acres 

 and planted the whole in peaches. He found that a peach orchard 

 in the neighborhood would last twelve years, and after that no 

 peaches could be procured. " The yellows " is a disease not under- 

 stood, but destroys young orchards. Peaches seem to be a migra- 

 tory crop, and hence peach growers are continually moving into 

 new and hitherto untried districts. 



HONEY. 



Mr. E. G. Holcomb, Brasher Iron Works, St. Lawrence county, 

 N. Y. — For the information of the readers of the Club reports, I 

 will give my plan of having surplus honey. I tried frames in 

 small boxes, putting seven in a box; those all weighed twelve or 

 fourteen pounds, and according as filled did very well, only some- 

 times the bees would fill one in such shape that it could not be got 

 out short of tearing the box to pieces. The difiiculty was in their 

 building the combs too thick either at top or bottom or one end. 

 This was wholly obviated by making the frames like a bureau 

 drawer, with the ends as wide as the top, the bottom piece a little 

 narrower; and to admit the bees, a groove was cut with a saw near 

 one edge of the end pieces on the inside, and thin pieces slipped 

 into this groove for a back to the frame, using spaces three-eighths 

 of an inch in width for the bees to go through. This back forming 

 a division between the combs, causing them to be built even and 

 straight. Mine hold just two pounds each, and are seven and one- 

 half inches long, six and one-half inches high, top and ends one 

 and three-eighths inches wide, bottom one inch wide, ends three- 

 sixteenths, top and bottom one-fourth of an inch thick, strips for 



