344 TBANSACTIONS OF THE 



mental plants many ways, requiring supplies of water but few 

 times in a year. 



Mr. Blot gave a description of his method of raising mush- 

 rooms. He makes trenches three feet deep, filled in with the 

 proper materials, chiefly horse dung, which originate the mush- 

 room spawn. Mr. Blot can raise on an acre eighty quarts a day 

 of the genuine mushrooms, in winter and summer. That this deli- 

 cate article is always in demand, and that our cities will consume 

 all that can be raised. Mr. Blot desires persons of capital to examine 

 his place, and if convinced of its success, carry his plan into 

 operation on a large scale. He lives now in 119th street, five 

 doors from the Second avenue. 



Mr. Pardee coincided with Mr. Blot in his account of the nature 

 of the spawn in horse dung. 



Mr. Bergen presented an invitation from Messrs. Hecker to 

 examine their flouring mills, at 265 and 267 Cherry street. 



The Chairman called up the order of the day, viz: " Orchards, 

 how to make and preserve them," and " Winter work of the 

 farmer." 



Thomas W. Tield of Brooklyn, being an active and practical 

 orchardist, was requested to speak. He complied as follows : 



What agricultural science now needs most in this country, is 

 an extension and diffusion of the principles of Vegetable Phy- 

 siology, to serve as a foundation for more comprehensive theories. 

 Though American agricultural practice has its peculiarities for 

 economical reasons, on investigation these peculiarities will gene- 

 rally be found to be based on established natural laws. True 

 agricultural hypothesis must be derived directly from nature. 



The tree itself has told men from the beginning that the pyra- 

 midal was the best possible form. That the stem or trunk is an 

 expense to which the plant is put, by the competition of surround- 

 ing plants, to elevate its top to the influence of light and air. As 

 the most essential part of a plant is the leaf, and as the functions 

 of this organ are by means of solar forces to reduce carbon from 

 the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, and to fix it in plant tissue, 

 so it follows that pruning for the benefit of the plant should be to 

 the end of extending leaf surface. When two l)ranches are strug- 



