262 transactions of the american institute. 



Coal Ashes. 



Mr. Isaac B. Rnmford, Kennet Square, Chester connty, Penn., says: "I 

 would like you to bring before the Farmers' Club the question, what effect 

 do stone coal ashes have on wood ashes ? We find that if a handful of 

 stone coal ashes gets in with the wood ashes the lye will not make any 

 soap. Why is tins so ? and will it also destroy the Talu^e of wood ash as a 

 fertilizer ? 



Professor Christie said he bad heard of this diflSculty twenty years ago. 



Professor Nash said that if the coal ashes contained any appreciable 

 quantity of sulphuric acid, it would destroy the value of wood ashes, unless 

 quicklime is added to the leach to absorb the acid. As to the value of coal 

 ashes as a fertilizer, all ex}>evimentn have been too indefinite to give any 

 trustworthy results. 



Mr. Thomas Cavanach said that he spread a garden bed several inches 

 thick with coal ashes, which were mixed with the soil, and they rendered 

 it for that season almost barren. His experience is that the are of no sort 

 of benefit to land, except as a divisor. 



The Chairman said that he found last summer a tomato plant growing 

 out of a bed of coal ashes, about as large as an ordinary hay cock flattened 

 down; so far as he knew there was nothing but coal ashes in tlic pile. He 

 found them exactl}' suited to the growth of the tomato. He had no plant 

 in the richest garden soil that was more thrifty and prolific. True, it was 

 but a single experiment, yet the Club might take it for what it was worth. 



Adjourned. John W. Chambers, Secretary. 



March 7, 1865, 

 Mr. Nathan C. Ely in the chair. 



Culture of Silk. 



Mr. Frederick Baare. — By three years unceasing labors 1 have succeeded 

 to transplant a branch of the much neglected silk industry from the city of 

 New York into the much neglected valley of the Schoharie. There are 

 about one hundred American farmers' ancf mechanics' daughters around 

 here who have learned from me the art of weaving broad silks, and forty 

 of them are now busily engaged by me in this occupation. 



Insurmountable difliculties have not deterred me, and from the firm foot- 

 hold now gained, I can now reach another branch cast away and trampled 

 down, which is shooting fresh sprouts from the dirt into which it was 

 buried, a fresh green branch of hope rising modestly and unobserved by our 

 cast down looks from thistles, and thorns, ready to spread its delightful 

 verdure which a nation may recover from exhatstion. 



A man who has, starting from nothing, built up since 1852 his silk manu- 

 facturing establishment in New York, and carried it up to the highest 

 standard reached in our country — who passed the dry goods panic of 1854, 

 tlie crisis of 1857 unhurt — who lost all he had, but his life and that of one 

 child in 1860 — who passed the ordeal of a conflagration in 1863, and still 

 feels sure of his craft and maintins credit, is no enthusiast. 



I think, gentlemen, that the hour has struck when the culture of the Mul- 



