Proceedings of tee Farmers' Club. 521 



tliem; plant in rows and let tliem grow a year, tlien top them, and 

 when the lower growth is vigorous, they are ready to be transplanted. 

 For general culture, the Bartlett, Duchess and Sheldon are recom- 

 mended. Two or three other varieties are favorites. Much depends 

 on soil and climate. 



Inexpensive Articles of Food. 

 Mr. Barney, a gentleman doing business at iSTo. 116 John street, 

 showed the club a tin vessel so shaped as to fit into a common tea- 

 kettle. In this, Indian mush can be cooked with small expense, and 

 thus poor people, with little outlay for fuel and no waste in cookery, 

 can have sound and good food. He spoke of the wasteful habits of 

 our people in throwing away the head and feet and part of the legs 

 and tails of animals. Seven thousand ox heads are thrown away 

 ev^erv week. One can be bought for ten cents, and there are on and 

 in a beef's head sixteen pounds of good nourishing flesh. He says 

 that when you give a poor family a dollar they will spend it for 

 baker's bread and meat at twenty cents, of which a third wastes in 

 trimming and cooking, when twenty cents laid out in corn meal or 

 crushed wheat would give more nourishment. The i)Oor who have 

 no thought or thrift about these things must always remain poor. 



Cotton Seed as Manure. 

 Mr. Clarke Swallow, East Bridgewater, Mass. — It is stated that 

 cotton seed is the best manure for corn. It is very good for corn on 

 moist and heavy land ; it has no equal for early potatoes, strawberries, 

 and grapes. I have had the early Goodrich on my table, full grown, 

 in ten weeks from planting. They were very smooth and mealy, and 

 yielded one bushel from eight hills. This is a large yield for this 

 place. For strawberries, the vines should be nearly covered over with 

 cotton seed in the fall ; it keeps the fruit clean and nice. I had one 

 Concord vine that did poorly, bearing very little fruit, and ripening 

 late. I put. one bushel of cotton seed around the roots and near the 

 stalks in the fall. The next fall I gathered five bushels of good grapes, 

 and they ripened seven days earlier than the other Concords, and took 

 the first premium on a specimen of those grapes at the Plymouth 

 county agricultural fair that fall. I have used cotton seed for 

 manure for twenty years with good success. It should be left out 

 over the winter in smaU piles. 



