No. 129.] 395 



The committee appointed by the Minister of Marine, consist- 

 ing of Vice Admiral Mathieu, Captains Dubernad, Dufour de 

 Mont Louis, Surgeon Senard, and Sub Marine Commissary Test- 

 ard, reported that Masson took cabbage, dried fifteen months be 

 fore, now perfectly dry, steeped in warm water thirty minutes ; the 

 cabbage regained pretty nearly its original size, and seven times 

 its weight, when dry ; it was then boiled for three hours. Wo 

 added, by way ot seasoning, salt and pepper only, and found it 

 very nearly like fresh cabbage, and very good. The committee 

 think that by great pressure the vegetable may be preserved in 

 wooden boxes from all moisture. The experiment tried on board 

 the corvette Astrolabe corroborates this opinion. The report 

 signed by the captain, Gourdon, states that after fourteen years, 

 the dried cabbage made an excellent dish. That cabbage had 

 been kept in a metalic case hermetically sealed. By a report 

 signed by the Director of Administrative Service, Jurien, it is 

 stated that the dried spinach, boiled for twenty minutes, drained, 

 buttered, and then put over heat for half an hour, made as per- 

 fect as fresh spinach. 



Mr. Van Wyck thought that so far from there being any pre- 

 judice against mineral or inorganic manure either here or in 

 Europe, as has been intimated, the prejudice must be the other 

 way. This must necessarily be the case with all who know any- 

 thing about either scientific or practical farming. The primitive 

 earths, as they are usually called, such as silica, sand, alumina, 

 or clay, calcarious earth or lime, must necessarily be in all good 

 soils to a greater or less extent, and where nature generally pro- 

 vides them. These main ingredients usually contain others of 

 equal importance for the growth of plants, such as soda, potash, 

 gypsum, phosphate, &c. These or many of them, must be supplied 

 by man, when the soil gets exhausted of them by cropping. To 

 these must be added the organic, or the manure made from vege- 

 table and animal matter. These are the material of barn-yard 

 manure, which every farmer knows something about, and has 

 done for ages. When it is said this manure has been very much 

 extolled ol late in Eui'ope, and here, and beyond what it deserves, 

 it has been extolled not only of late, but ages since, and ever will 



