Proceedings of the Far3iees' Clvb. 527 



currants is doubtless, as our correspondent says, upon the whole the 

 best, but a few plants trained " tree fashion " if well taken care of, 

 are well worth the trouble they cost, if it is only for their ornamental 

 appearance. Whale-oil soap is an old established and comparatively 

 safe remedy for insects on plants, but petroleum should be used with 

 great care on most kinds of vegetation, or it will injure the latter as 

 well as kill the insects. There is no reason to suppose that tobacco 

 plugged into the wood of a tree would exert any deleterious effect 

 upon the fruit, neither is there any to believe that it would hurt the 

 insects. Even if a portion of the essential principle of the tobacco 

 should be carried into the circulation with the sap, it would be in 

 such small quantities as to amount, practically to nothing. The advice 

 to search out and destroy the nests of vermin on trees at this-time of 

 year was good, not only because the nests are more easily discovered 

 when the branches are bare of leaves, but because farmers have more 

 leisure now to attend to such things than at any other time. 



Adjourned. 



January 26, 1869. 



Mr. Nathan C. Ely in the chair ; Mr. Joitn" W. Chamuees, Secretary. 

 FRriTS, Mili^URES, ETC. 



Mr. Philemon Stout, Cotton Hill, Sangamon county, 111, — I have 

 read the reports of the Farmers' Club for several years with a great deal 

 of interest, and, I think, profit. But I can hardly realize, here in 

 Illinois, why it is that there is so much of the time of the club devoted 

 to the subject of manure, while there are thousands of loads on our 

 farms going to waste, though I do not consider it good farming. We 

 invite our friends from the east, who are seeking locations, to come to 

 Sangamon county. 111., for there is plenty of room for good fanners ; 

 where we can raise from fifty to 100 bushels of corn to the acre, and 

 other crops in proportion, and all the fertilizers we need is red clover, 

 which will grow as well, perhaps, as any place in the world. My 

 orchard has been in clover eight or nine years, and has been mowed 

 twice a year, and the clover looks strong and vigorous ; and I have 

 another field sowed w^ith clover and timothy, half of each, which has 

 been pastured about seven years, and the clover has almost entirely 

 taken it. Those fields, I think, are better than when the prairie sod 

 was turned. Apples are very fine; I keep my trees free from all 

 insects by washing them once a year, in May, with strong tobacco tea, 



