Proceedixgs of the Farmers' Club. 553 



neighbors for paying a dollar a hundred for these unattractive crea- 

 tures, which I keep on my grounds hj the thousand, to guard the 

 growing things when I sleep. 



Lakge Crops of Corn. 



Mr. J. William Cox of Ilanierton, Pa., forwarded several very 

 large ears of corn, tM'enty-two rows to the ear. In fact, the maize 

 was quite amazing, and he wrote of it as follows : The ground upon 

 which it grew was prepared by spreading twelve loads of barnyard 

 manure per acre on the soil, which was plowed down in the spring to 

 the depth of six or eight inches. The corn was planted in drills four feet 

 apart, by eighteen inches in the drill. One hundred and fifty pounds 

 of phosphate was drilled in with the corn. The yield will be from 

 sixty-five to seventy-five bushels of shelled corn per acre in six acres. 



Mr. C. M. Hayes, Horlleton, Union county. Pa. — I will give you 

 a brief account of a corn crop that I think is hard to beat. We 

 plowed three acres of timothy and clover sod late last fall, about three- 

 fourths of an acre of it being a " made soil," having received the 

 wash of a considerable extent of country for a good many years. Of 

 this rich land we measured oflT two half acres, one of which yielded 

 107 bushels and a peck of corn in the ear ; the other eighty-one and a 

 half bushels. Variety was what is called here gourd seed. We 

 marked out both ways, and then had hard work to keep down the 

 weeds. Cultivated it seven times; about one-fourth of an acre was 

 planted in potatoes, the remaining two and three-fourths acres yielded 

 305^ bushels of corn in the ear. Yfe seldom have had better crops 

 throughout this valley ; hay, wheat, oats, corn and potatoes, all are 

 more than usually abundant. 



Report on Sorguum Syrups. 

 Messrs. Curtis, Gregory and Preterre, to whom the sorghum syrup 

 was referred for test, reported as follows : We went to the rooms of 

 Dr. Preteri-e and first subjected the diff'erent specimens to the most 

 discriminating judgment we could make by the palate. The bottles 

 of crude sorgo we found of good color, especially that made on Cook's 

 evaporator, but the taste was objectionable on accuuut of tlie strong 

 fiavor of corn stalk or raw pumpkin, which, notwithstanding its fair 

 color, so depreciates its value that the committee is not surprised to 

 know that it sells in the Cincinnati market at fifty-five cents a gallon. 

 The bottles numbered two and three, S3'rup made at the sugar-house 



