AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 251 



Prof. Mapes spoke favorably of the new sugar plant introduced 

 into this country — the Sorghum or sugar millet. It is growing 

 finely at his place, and so is every other plant, unaffected by 

 drouth, wherever the ground has been undtrdrained or deeply 

 sub-soil plowed. His fence seems a line of demarkation between 

 green fields and those parched and brown of his neighbors. He 

 contends that the prevention of injury from drouth is in the 

 hands of every farmer. Flat culture of all crops is his rule, ajid 

 horse-hoeing his practice. His potatoes so worked are very fine 

 this year, and his dwarf pears, specially manured, are unusually 

 good, and have not suffered in the least from drouth. He also 

 stated that he rarely used a hoe on his farm; everything is done 

 by machines drawn by horses, or, what he greatly prefers, mules. 

 He has one mule said to be about fifty years old, that will walk 

 between two rows of carrots, twelve inches apart. 



MAMMOTH PIE-rLANT. 



Solon Robinson exhibited a stalk of Gaboon's mammoth seedling 

 Rhubarb, grown at Kenosha, Wisconsin, that excited considerable 

 curiosity. It was out of a box sent to the Tribune office for dis- 

 tribution, and some of it on trial was found as rich and ter.deras 

 that of smaller growth. It is supposed to be the most produc- 

 tive variety grown for culinary purposes, and should be in every 

 market garden, and then, possibly, it would be grown in such 

 abundance that it could be purchased by people in ordinary cir- 

 cumstances, 



NEW SEEDLING BLACKBERRY. 



Mr. A. A. Bensel sent a basket of blackberries, from plants 

 discovered nine years ago by Jonas Newman, of Marlborough, 

 Ulster county, New- York, that are not as large as the Lawton 

 blackberry, but of a very decidedly better flavor. The follow- 

 ing paper was furnished by Mr. Newman : 



'* The blackberries now offered to the Farmers' Club are not 

 exhibited on account of extraordinary size, but it is believed that 

 they will compare favorably with other sorts on account of their 

 great productiveness and good qualities as a market berry. The 

 berries are usually above the medium size of the New Rochelle 

 or Lawton blackberry. The specimen sent being from plants 

 removed in the spring of 1855, are not so large as from roots 

 older and better established. The writer first noticed these ber- 

 ries nine years ago, and so enormous was the yield from two 

 shoots growing upon a stone wall that it was determined to try 

 good cultivation upon them, and removed them next spring into 



