Peoceedings of the Farmers' Club. 775 



Prof. II. C. Colton. — Since the interesting lecture of Prof. Cook, 

 before the Chib, I have been examining into the marls or green sands 

 of New Jersey, and am satisfied of their great value. In my native 

 State we have an abundance of sliell-marl, but I think it would pay 

 many of our planters to get the green sand of New Jersey rather than 

 dig their shell-marl. Mucli wood is brought from Western Virginia 

 and North Carolina in small sloops and schooners wdiich might load 

 back with marl. As now it contains more valuable matter than most 

 fertilizers, and .if concentrated as Mr. Lyman says would be far supe- 

 rior to any of them. Marl warmed up cold, wet lands, and was espe- 

 cially a valuable manure for cotton. ^ 



Cornell Uxiversity — Address by Prof. Gould. 

 Hon. John Stanton Gould, late President of the New York State 

 Agricultural Society, and now Professor of Agriculture in Cornell 

 University, was introduced by the chairman with the remark that he 

 was one of the buttresses of the above named institution. Professor 

 Gould responded by thanking the audience for the compliment con- 

 veyed through the chair, and said he was glad to be able to state that 

 the university was in the way of doing great good, and in no respect to a. 

 greater degree than in that pertaining to agriculture. He would 

 refer in his remarks more especially to the pressing necessity of a 

 greater thoroughness in the education of farmers than now obtains. 

 It is the one thing needful. There is, he was sorry to say, but the 

 whole truth might as well be told, an inability on the part of the 

 agricultural community to grasp the great principles that underlie 

 all successful agricultural practice. Much that has been published 

 on this subject is hardly worth the reading. Some time since he had 

 occasion to study the construction and operation of plows, but could 

 not find a single treatise that would convey to the farmer an iota of 

 knowledge concea'ning the science of plowing or the rules of art that 

 are necessary to be observed in the form and structure of this indis- 

 pensable implement of tillage. In turning a furrow-slice, three dis- 

 tinct operations are performed, tending to the disintegration of the- 

 goil — the object of all culture. WJien first raised the particles of the- 

 furrows move upon each other in such a way that the furrow divides 

 vertically as it were into thin sheets ; when the slice tends still fur- 

 ther, a similar action takes place, transvdrsely or horizontally ; and, 

 finally, when it presses the spiral wing of the mold-board, it is simi- 

 larly divided in an oblique direction, and the difierent ratios of motion. 



