408 [Assembly 



excellent food, and very cheap, too. I have here specimens of 

 fibre from Cliiua grass, which is like floss silk. Kellogg, of New- 

 Hampshire, is preparing flax for cotton mills to spin this year. 

 We admire the rich colors and durability of these specimens be- 

 fore us. The rotting of flax is to be perfect and rapid. We make 

 good paper out of rye straw. Our land can now be bought — next 

 to mine — for sixty-eight cents per acre ! I had a hoe once for 

 mixing mortar there. I had no other use for it, and now I have 

 none, for it has been stolen. As for the flax, we are obliged to 

 throw that away as yet, all we keep being the seed. 



Mr. Abraham Levy, of the Institute, brought from Montreal, 

 presented to the Institute by the Honorable Moses J. Hays, 

 President of the Agricultural Society, apples from his Metcalf 

 farm ; seeds of a Canadian pumpkin which weighed two hundred 

 and seventy-eight pounds ; black barley from seeds from 

 Abyssinia , and a specimen of water-proof cloth of Montreal, 

 called pannus corium, or leather cloth. 



Messrs. Crane & Rice, of San Francisco, California, presented a 

 potato from the farm of Mr. Fuller, of Oregon, weighing three 

 and a half pounds. It measures at the largest circumference 

 twenty-three and a half inches, is of a reddish brown color, is in 

 sound condition, and is said to be excellent, and it is said that it 

 is common to find potatoes there and in California, of similar 

 magnitude. 



The Hays apples were tasted by the Club, and adjudged very 

 good. Seeds were distributed among the members. The 

 subject of flax, and also the large potato, were ordered to lie on 

 the table, until the next meeting of the Club. 



After voting thanks to several gentlemen, the Club then ad 

 journed. 



