268 TB A XS ACTIONS OF THE A ME B WAN INSTITUTE. 



Bruce S. Hoag, A. G. Bisbee, Ohio, and to a large number of ladies, 

 the list too long for publication. 



Adjourned. 



June 16, 1868. 



Mr. Nathan C. Ely in the Chair; Mr. John W. Chambers, Secretary. 

 CoAL-TAK FOR PRESERVING WoOD. 



Mr, Samuel T. Rodgers, Waterbury, Ct, — For fence posts the bark 

 should be removed, and a thick coating of coal-tar applied. Every 

 farmer should have a barrel of this valuable preservative on hand. 



Mr, Colyer. — In laying the Nicolson pavement pne-third pitch and 

 two-thirds coal-tar are used. It is much better to dip the posts in a 

 vessel of hot tar than to apply with a brush, which will not stand the 

 tar. Any common oil is good for cleaning the tar from the hands ; 

 afterward kerosene may be used to finish up with. A good deal of 

 tlie coal-tar from gas-houses contains an acid which is sometimes inju- 

 rious to pine wood. The Dunderberg was seriously damaged by the 

 gas-house tar used in its construction. 



Deep Plowing. 



Mr. David Pettit, Salem, Xew Jersey. — We do not plow in this 

 county six inches deep, and yet our crops have increased rapidly for 

 the last thirty years, so that our productions are now more than 

 double what they were then, and our farm lands have advanced in 

 market value in a much greater ratio. Kone of our best grain farms 

 can be piu'chased now for $200 per acre. This, too, under a system 

 of plowing rather under than over five inches. 



Your reporter says : 11. Greeley decidedly said that a farmer should 

 start with eighteen inches oi fertile soil as a capital, and expressly 

 disclaimed advocating turning up barren subsoil to the surface. If 

 H. G. means that we should pulverize and manure our land to the 

 depth of eighteen inches before cropping, or even after, the idea to 

 practical farmers here is simply ridiculous ; for no land here will pay 

 in fann crops the extra cost of manuring and pulverizing to that 

 depth, or the half of it, if our crops should be largely increased 

 thereby ; but all experiments here of deep plowing and subsoiling to 

 increase our crops have proved failures and been abandoned. 



(Jf Avhat possible use can it be to resort to deep plowing and pul- 

 verizing to increase our crops, if it would so increase them when we 

 grow crops already larger than they can stand and mature under the 



