238 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



favor to farmers' boys and g'irls than he would by telling them how to grow 

 better crops, or anything else about farming. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — I have told how in print repeatedly. I will again. 

 Get a small bottle of collodion (liquid cuticle), costing not over fifty cents, 

 and as soon as the pustules begiu to discharge, varnish them over with 

 collodion, and take care to keep them constantly covered with it ; that is, 

 if the discharge lifts the film, put on more. This keeps the air from the 

 sore, and it heals and leaves the skin smooth. A torn rag, rolled, with the 

 fringe at one end, makes a good brush. Let the patient be kept in a cold 

 room, not necessarily a dark one. At first the scars are red, then white, 

 then they disappear. 



A New Grass. 



Mr. John K. Hale, Wyandotte, Kansas, sends a specimen of a new grass, 

 a single tuft of which he found last aiftumn. He says : " From the fact of 

 its longer growth than any other grass in the localit}' where found during 

 the extreme drouth of last summer, it may be peculiarly adapted to this 

 ' thisty land.' 



" I feel a great desire to know its genus, and trust you will have it 

 examined, and if indeed a new variety, reported on." 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — This grass is common in Florida. It is out of 

 place in Kansas. It is not worth cultivation. 



Irrigation. 



Mr. Hiram Brown, Carlton, Orleans county. New York : ""We want in- 

 formation about irrigation upon this shore of Lake Ontario, where the soil 

 is good, but suffers from drouth. Last year it injured our crops seriously, 

 and it appears to be growing worse and worse Streams are numerous, 

 which could be used if we knew how and had some general system." 



Mr. Dodge replied that we never can successfully practice irrigation in 

 this country for want of concert in action among the numerous owners of 

 small farms. The system needs studying and laws to promote, and edu- 

 cated engineers to carry into efiect. 



Mr. George Bartlett said he had seen some very beneficial effects from 

 irrigation in Massachusetts. In one case a piece of poor sandy land was 

 made to produce great crops of grass by irrigation of water from a woolen 

 factory. 



Dr. Sylvester Lyons, Wayne count}^ New York. — Irrigation is carried 

 on in the South in the raising of rice. The lauds have to be banked. 

 AVater is allowed to flow on the land in which the rice is planted. This is 

 called the bud-flow, and again at a later dale the land is again flowed, 

 which is called the harvest-flow. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter alluded to the value of irrigation for strawberries, 

 which cannot be successfully grown without a free supply of water. 



Mr. Solon Robinson tliought irrigaticm of far greater value for grass than 

 strawberries, as the value of the crop can be doubled upon any land by the 

 use of water alone. He said that Dr. Sylvester was mistaken about rice, 

 that it could not be grown inland. There is a kind of upland rice that 



