438 Transactions of the American Institute. 



from lead pipe for twenty years, and yet they were perfectly 

 healthy. In this case, however, the pipe for a long distance was 

 on a dead level, so the poison was not forced into the house. In 

 taking this pipe up years afterward, there was enough w4iite lead 

 found in the pipe to paint a small house, inside and out, and if 

 taken internally, would kill a small army. I have known bullets 

 and shot used as physic, but in that case no chemical action of 

 water and lead could take place. 



Mr. R. J. Dodge. — While it is so doubtful, we ought not to 

 recommend the use of lead pipe. 



EUTA BAGA TURNIPS. 



Mr. E. W. Wasson, Coatsville, Ind. — I own three acres of land 

 about equally divided between clay and loam, and out of not less 

 than seven attempts to raise rutabagas, in not one have I succeeded. 



Mr. P. T. Quinn. — On the ground where we raise early potatoes, 

 we grow a crop of turnips the same year. About the 15th of 

 July we throw the ground into ridges by turning two furrows 

 together, making the rows two feet apart. We plant in drills on 

 the ridges, using two pounds of seed per acre. When the plants 

 are about three inches high, we thin them out, leaving the turnips 

 from four to six inches apart. Ruta bagas will yield from two hun- 

 dred and iSfty to eight hundred bushels an acre. 



FLAX IN CANADA. 



Dr. M. W. Brown, Paris, Ontario, Dominion Canada.^ — For a few 

 years past there has been no little solicitation on the part of men 

 who had or were about to establish flax mills, to induce farmers to 

 sow flax, by lending seed to be returned in the foil, and agreeing 

 to purchase their crop, rotted or not, or dressing their crop on 

 shares, or purchasing their half when dressed, at a given price, 

 ■which was generally four or five cents below the market price. 

 The mill men took half for dressing — rather a heavy interest; but 

 the farmers had no alternative for want of concert of action. The 

 only way for farmers to make flax-growing jDrofitable is to club 

 together and buy a brake and scutching machine, and run it by 

 horse-power when water-power is not convenient. The brakes first 

 used here were from Todd & Rafferty, Patterson. N. J.; cost, about 

 $400 — about the price of a threshing machine. The average peld 

 of flax-lint per acre is sixty to two hundred pounds; seed, ten to 

 fifteen bushels. Price per pound here, before the termination of 

 the reciprocity treaty, fifteen to seventeen cents per pound; now, 



