680 TbAiXSactioks of tub American Ixstitute. 



I am no dealer in fancy poultry, but keep fowls for what they can 

 produce. For me the breed that returns the largest for tlie outlay is 

 the most profitable, as it costs no more to keep good stock than poor, 

 and I am not so biased in favor of any breed that I would not change 

 for a better one. For yeai^s I have tried barn-door, graded improved 

 fowls, but the above result may be accredited to White Leghorns for 

 constant layers, and Bramas for market and winter laying. My expe- 

 rience proves that there is much in feed as well as breed, and 1 give 

 my fowls the best of care, in winter, feeding plenty of grain, meat, 

 and vegetables, with broken bones and shells, and a supply of fresh 

 water, dividing them in two or three lots, and housing in warm, 

 roomy buildings. In summer they have the range of iields and 

 orchards, and require little or no feeding. If there are any common 

 fowls that can do better in producing eggs than my Leghorns have 

 done, you will do us farmers a great kindness by telling us where they 

 can be found, for we Avant to feed none but the best paying hens, 

 and have all tried wdiat we supposed were genuine " dung hills," and 

 found them wanting, in not laying above 120 to 1-10 eggs per year, 

 too good setters and non-winter layers, in fact no better for eggs than 

 Bramas. 



Aktificial Fektilizeks, their Manufacture akd Uses. 



Prof. James A. Whitney read the following paper : 

 The subject is somewhat mal-odo.rous. The material from which 

 a large proportion of this class of fertilizers are fabricated is organic 

 matter in various stages of decay, and would repel rather than inter- 

 est were it not for the collossal proportions which the manufacture of 

 manurial agents have of late years assumed, and the direct bearing 

 which it has upon agricultural progress in many portions of our 

 country. As it is, few topics are of greater practical imjDortance to 

 the farming community. 



The object of all manuring is simply to supply the soil with those 

 elements which are ca])able of being taken up by plants and by 

 the mysterious agency of organic life transmuted^ into stem, leaf 

 and kernel. There are in all about a dozen of these elements, 

 some required only in small quanties, while others must exist 

 in larger proportions, these last being annnonia, phosphoric 

 acid and potash. Of these the two former are those for 

 which artificially prepared fertilizers are the most highly prized, 

 .although the potash contained in many varieties adds materially to 



