722 TKAxsACTioys of the American Institute. 



March 1, 1870. 



Nathan C. Ely, Esq., in the chair; Mr, J. W. Cuambekk, Secretary. 

 French Cart IIorse. 

 Mr. E. W. Sbippen, Meadville, Pa. — I have a pair of this breed, 

 one of which weighs 1,350 pounds, and the other 1,400 pounds. In 

 October I walked tliem over a hill v clay road fourteen miles (including 

 two stoppages for water) in three hours and twenty-five minutes, 

 drawing a wagon weighing 900 pounds, with two mowing machines 

 on it weighing 1,500 pounds. Upon another occasion, with the same 

 load, I walked them over a hilly road ten and a half miles in two 

 hours and thirty minutes. In the same month I hauled with them, 

 on a wagon weighing 1,500 pounds, twenty-two loads sandstone, mea- 

 suring 788 cubic feet, estimated at 156 pounds per cubic foot, making 

 four loads per day, a distance of three miles (twenty-four miles per 

 day), making an average of 5,580 pounds of stone per load, or 22,320 

 pounds moved three miles in one day. On the 21st of January, I 

 hauled one lo^d wet ashes, 6,363 pounds, wagon 1,500 pounds, total 

 7,863 pounds, a distance of three miles, part of the way being up a 

 bill of eleven feet ascent in the hundred. A common load is 800 

 feet of green white oak lumber direct from the saw, and I have just 

 xbeen filling my ice house, drawing eighty-eight cubic feet ice per 

 load. The livery stable keepers of Meadville have refused to sell me 

 manure at one dollar per load, whilst they would sell it to me at 

 fifty cents per load if drawn with any common team. "We have no 

 paved or macadamized roads in this section of the country, they being 

 all clay or dirt roads. If the Clydesdale horse is as showy and as 

 good a draught horse as the French, I hope you will use your influ- 

 ence in having some of them imported, or any class which will 

 improve our present degenerate race of farm and draught horses. 



Desiccated Fruits. 

 Mr. Ohas. Alden, No. 35 Park Place, IS ew York, showed specimens 

 of fruits preserved by the " Alden process," and explained that this 

 process consists of evaporating the water without causing any chemi- 

 cal change, and leaving every propert}-- of value, so that when the 

 fruit or vegetable again absorbs the amount of moisture taken from 

 it it will have all the original taste and flavor. Tiie machine is capa- 

 ble of evaporating the water from four bushels tomatoes or any other 



