298 Tea^sactioxs of the American Institute. 



washing the earth carefully out of the roots, and have always found 

 the main root on, with the shell of the grain planted, but the space 

 from the old grain up to what was then the lower end of the stalk, 

 dead, while the root below the grain, alive, and a few slender roots 

 near the surface of the ground. Good hills taken up the same way, 

 the main root was found to be alive. I have found from two to six 

 of the large Avhite-bodied, small brown-headed grub worms, as thej 

 are called, in the decayed vegetable matter among the sods about the 

 good hills, and near a pint of the excrement of the worms, as black 

 as the decayed vegetable matter upon which they apparently fed, but 

 not one root that showed signs of being eaten off. But not in a single 

 case have I found any worms about the poor hills; and a good reason, 

 I think, is that the there has been but little or no sod on the ground, 

 and no decayed vegetable matter for them to feed upon, as I think 

 that is their subsistence : for we frequently find them in chip-manure 

 and old rotten wood. What is the cause of this ?" 



Dr. Trimble thought that plenty of barn-yard manure would avail. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller said that it was what is called the corn worm, a 

 new insect, named last year by Mr. Riley, of Missouri. It is about 

 a quarter of an inch long, and if the gentleman will look closely at 

 the sprouts, he will find these small grubs. Probably by dipping in 

 tar water, or something of that kind, before planting, it \vould keep 

 them off. It is a species of the onion grub. 



Management of Milk, Cream and Butter. 



Mr. L. Breckenridge, Toronto, Canada. — I take the liberty of 

 inquiring what is considered the best method of keeping milk so as 

 to produce the greatest quantity of butter ; if there is any better way 

 than in a cellar ; and if not, how should a cellar be constructed to be 

 best adapted for the purpose. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — This gentleman cannot have a better 

 model than the practices of those farmers in Delaware and Chester 

 counties, Pennsylvania, who make the famous Philadelphia butter, 

 which sells the year around at seventy-five cents a pound. I had 

 the pleasure last summer of acting on a committee with a number of 

 gentlemen who visited those farms. The report we made has been 

 copied very widely, and the Commissioner of Agriculture has put it 

 in his report. We there saw the finest of butter made without 

 water. Most of the dairies, it is true, were furnished with fine 

 spring houses ; but cold water is not indispensable. Marshall Strode, 



