Proceedings of the Farmers'' Club. 727 



came np iirst and looked the blackest and rankest the whole season, 

 and yielded the best crop and largest potatoes. 



Mr, 11. L. Reade. — William H. Pntnam, of Brooklyn, Conn., 

 grandson of the man who bearded the wolf in his den, has increased 

 the average weight of his wheat from thirty pounds to the bnshel to 

 Z4^ pounds, by sowing the very best seed ; seed that remains after 

 winnowing the grain, and blowing out all the light seeds, sowing 

 about half of the grain of which common farmers sow the whole. 



Miss Middy Morgan. — Thorough winnowing is always practiced in 

 England, and there we often go so far as to pick the seed over by 

 hand before sowing. 



Wood Ashes. 



Mr. C H. Taylor, of Deposit, New York. — Do wood ashes applied 

 to land permanently enrich it, or do they only act chemically on 

 other substances in the soil to convert them into plant food ? 



Prof. J. A. Whitney. — The most direct effect of ashes is to supply 

 potash to growing vegetation, and this takes place in the greatest 

 degree when the ashes are fresh and a large percentage of the. 

 potash is soluble in water. Afterward, when the ashes have 

 become leached, the silicates of potash, lime, &c., decompose slowly 

 and yield up their elements for plant nutrition. Ashes may, there- 

 fore, be considered a very permanent fertilizer. They also act 

 chemically to liberate other kinds of plant food. 



Gypsum or Plaster of Paris. 



Mr. O. J. Chase Boonville, Ind. — Are gypsum and plaster of Paris 

 the same thing ? Will it pay to buy plaster at live dollars a barrel 

 and draw it twelve miles to sow on clover ? 



Prof. J, A. Whitney. — The two are identical, except that the term 

 plaster of Paris is commonly applied to the finer kind of gypsum 

 after it is boiled and treated with water for making casts and statuary, 

 but there are some kinds of gypsum so impure that it cannot be used 

 for such purposes. Except under rare circumstance it will not be 

 profitable to use much plaster on clover at the cost mentioned. 



Scrap Book ^-qr Farmers. 



In examining the voluminous correspondence, the Secretary 



frequently has occasion to note that the same question is asked three 



or four times in the course of as many months by persons in various 



sections of the country, notwithstanding the fact that the information 



