AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 375 



I once fatted some hogs entirely with apples, that looked ^el], 

 but in boiling the pork it wasted near two-thirds of its weight. 

 Hence it is not only important, but imperative, that fattening 

 animals should be fed cereals. 



WHEAT AND CORN CROPS. 



Mr. Geddes inquired of the President whether the wheat he 

 mentioned, cut green, and of the greatest weight per busliel, 

 gave the greatest yield of bushels, in profits, per acre. The 

 latter is important, since a buyer never troubles himself about 

 quality or quantity of gluten, so that the grain looks well. 



Mr. Pell — The field I grew the wheat mentioned upon, was 

 manured with charcoal dust, and in one place, where the cart 

 u^iset, it was highly impregnated with tliis substance, and that 

 portion yielded at the rate of seventy-eight bushels of wheat to 

 the acre. I think that would have been the most profitable. 



T. W. Field — I find in all experiments so many attending 

 circumstances, that I can get at no certain facts with a single 

 experiment. One season the sun shines, and another it rains. 

 You recollect the wheat I exhibited here, grown upon loose sand, 

 that was better than wheat upon adjoining soil manured with 

 guano. I once applied burned bones, at the rate of eight tons 

 per acre, without a sign of benefit to the crop. What made that 

 sand heap productive ? 



Mr. Geddes — So we get crops from gravel thrown out of cellars. 

 As to growing one hundred bushels of corn to the acre, as one 

 gentleman mentions, I have never seen such a crop grown. I 

 should like to. 



Mr. Pell — I have grown a hundred bushels of shelled corn per 

 acre; but it cost me nearly as much as the crop was worth in 

 extra manure and labor. 



Mr. Geddes — A good deal depends on what we call a bushel of 

 corn. I believe that corn will shrink from December to May fifteen 

 per cent. I think I get a good crop when I raise sixty bushels of 

 corn per acre. Corn premiums are often awarded to a very rough 

 manner of measurement. I never count my crops until I sell 

 them, and whatever they measure then, I make my estimate per 

 acre yield upon. 



