Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 387 



(lends are now paid to fortnnate stockholders in marl companies. 

 Hereaway we are kept in blissful ignorance of these things, for these 

 stockholders, being gentlemen of " position and fortmie," cannot be 

 .expected to discuss the matter of their profits with sunburned farmers. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — This letter opens an abuse of tlie greatest 

 .significance to rural advancement. For my part I believe the rail- 

 roads would find their account in passing all manure trains free. If 

 not thus, then at the lowest figure that will cover bare cost of moving 

 the fertilizers. At any rate, a monopoly of such article as marl, and 

 this is what the Jersey roads are aiming at, is worse than a land 

 monopoly or a monopoly of flour or salt. By spreading this deposit, 

 as the Creator has, in a wide belt across a State and at a moderate 

 depth. He shows that He did not mean with it to enrich a few rail- 

 road lands, but to bless the entire population. I trust the subject 

 will arrest attention and influence voting in that State. It is a wond- 

 erful manure, and has doubled, yes, trebled the value of many thou- 

 sand acres; but its beneficent capacity has but just begun if it can 

 have that treedom of commerce and that general application which all 

 our soils require. As contrasted with bones, it is far more lasting in 

 its efiects. Near Toms river I lately saw corn that will give sixty 

 bushels to the acre growing on land that was marled ten years ago 

 by hauling it fourteen miles over a sandy road. 



Mr. J. W. Gregory. — I do not agree with the gentleman in calling 

 .bone a transient manure. 



The Chairman. — That depends on how fine they are crushed. If 

 jou grind them to a fine flour bone will act at once, and will spend 

 its strength on the first and second crops. But when they are crushed 

 merely their effect lasts many years, as many as seven or eight. On 

 fast growing crops I recommend the fine bone flour, but for fruit 

 trees and grape vines, the coarse. 



A Steam Plow. 

 Mr. T. C. Peters. — I would like, Mr. Chairman, to give the Club 

 a little sketch of the steam plow lately imported by a gentleman in . 

 Atsion, on the Delaware and Rariton bay railroad. He is going 

 largely into the sugar beet industry, and has imported this plow for 

 the use of the whole community. Two engines are stationed over 

 against each other, and a wire rope is wound on a drum, first by one, 

 then by the op^posite. To this rope the plows are attached ; there 

 are six plows ^oing one way, then six the other, on the same frame. 



