634 Transactions of the American Institute. 



Mulching. 



Mr. Peter Dolan, Dolington, Penn., took exception to Mr. P. T. 

 Quinn's recommendation to use hay as mulcli for strawberries. 

 According to his experience it fills the soil with weeds, and thereby 

 increases the labor of cultivation. 



Dr. F. M. Hexamer. — The hay Mr. Quinn spoke of was salt hay 

 gathered from the marshes near his farm in Newark, and which con- 

 tains no seed. That used by our correspondent was probably timothy, 

 which is, as he states, a very poor material for the purpose. Where 

 salt hay cannot be procured oat straw may be used ; or, what is even 

 better, rye straw. Corn stalks do not answer, but some mulch is, in 

 my estimation, quite important. In fact, if I could not mulch tliem 

 I would cease the culture of strawberries at once. With me it makes 

 a difference of a hundred bushels to the acre. 



Men who make Farming Pay. 



Mr. J. B. Lyman read the following paper : — About twenty yeara 

 agp, John Daws, a Quaker farmer, whose ancestors migrated with 

 William Penn, came across the Delaware from Bucks county. Pa., 

 and looked at Jersey lands. He bought an old farm of 150 acres in 

 Monmouth county, about twelve miles west of the battle-field. A 

 portion of the British forces camped on the land the night before that 

 memorable action. Mr. Daws gave twenty dollars an acre. The 

 land had been run in an exhausting round of corn, rye, old pasture, 

 till it would not yield over five bushels of shelled corn to the acre, 

 often not more than three. He began with lime, and lime has been 

 his favorite dressing for twenty years. He has applied in all 17,000 

 bushels, or at tlie rate of nearly 1,000 bushels a year. His crops have 

 been wheat, potatoes, grass, sorghum and apples. He plants trees 

 that will bear, whether the variety be the best or not ; then he makes 

 cider, and converts his cider into vinegar. He has this winter $800 

 worth of old vinegar in store. Some years he has made $300 income 

 from poultry. He liolds his farm now at $150 per acre, and his land 

 is not in the market. 



In 1862 he sold a farm to liis brother, for M-liicli he had given 

 thirty-four dollars per acre a few years ago. His brother gave him 

 sixty dollars per acre, very little in cash, but mostly in $1,000 notes, 

 secured by mortgage on the land sold, the notes drawing seven per 

 cent interest. In six years the last of these notes was taken up. 

 This was done on common farm croj^s, as wheat and potatoes. Tlie 

 land, meanwhile, has doubled in market value. 



