^294 [Assembly 



from 62^ to 75 cents a bushel, the latter the highest that will be 

 obtained, and this, pcrhtip?, for years, and sometimes as low as 

 fifty cents. The best time for cutting or harvesting our wheat t^ 

 lias not been noticed. I must be indulged with a few remarks 

 Qn this, as I consider it of some importance. It has been settled 

 by'expe'riments of scientific and practical farmers in Europe, and 

 eispecially Great Britain, that wheat cut two weeks before fully 

 ripe, is the best, for several reasons. It yields the greatest quan- 

 tity, and handsomer flour, 80 lbs. on the hundred ; whereas, that 

 cut when fully ripe, gaye only 72 lbs, Thebearded wheat, when 

 ripe, loses considerably in shelling, by gathering; the bald wheat 

 not so much ; the calyx or cup which holds the kernel is closer 

 around it, and holds it tighter. The straw of the earlier' cut 

 wheat makes better food for stock, and better manure for the 

 land, more of the juices of the stern and leaves are absorbed 'by 

 tthe latter while drying and ripening after being cut ; the stiemis 

 }Qot dryed to mere wood by standing and ripening in the ground. 

 The practise generally among our farmers has been to let their 

 wheat get. fully ripe before they cut it; many, latterly, have pur- 

 sued a different course, and no doubt benefitted hy it ; they have 

 put the sickle in earlier, a short time before the kernel got per- 

 fectly hard, and the straw dry as a stick. 



• Mr. N'asli being obliged by business to leave the clialr, called 

 Mr. Chambers to it. 



George S. Riggs, one of our members, sends from the country 

 some of the insects whicli are now devouring the leaves of the 

 potatoes in Dutchess, Ulster, and Albany counties, and savs that 

 •R, L. Pell speaks of it as hitherto unknown to us, and tliat it is 

 the same that attacked his California j)otatoes. The insect is a 

 black wiiiged bug, of the coleopter kind, the body of a dark ashy 

 gray. Some members of the club think that it has bee<ii htreto- 

 fore known ; others had never seen it before. 



Andrew Williams, Esq,, of San Francisco, at the request of tho 

 Secretary, sent to the club specimens of the celebrated redwood 

 of California, and of its foliage,, which were examined by the 

 members. Mr. Williams, in his communication, dated 1 5th May, 

 1852,- says thai; he had examined gome of the trees, and (bund 



