250 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — I tried this grain last year. I received it under 

 the name of spelt; but as you have to hull it, I prefer other varieties, al- 

 though it might do for feed as oats, yet I do not think it ■would yield as 

 ■well. 



Dwarf Pears. 



Mr. J. A. Donaldson, St. Joseph, Berrien county, Mich., says: "Not any 

 person who has not already learned that water standing around any fruit- 

 tree is injurious. It is a fact that might as well be acknowledged now as 

 later, that not one in a thousand has succeeded with dwarf pears. This 

 may seem rather strong; but I believe that if a person should start out to 

 find one who was making dwarf-pear culture profitable, he would find a 

 thousand who had not got the first cost of their trees. But very few take 

 good care of their apple orchards. It cannot, then, be expected that a tree 

 requiring so much skill and care as the dwarf pear can ever be very gene- 

 rally profitable." 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — We indorse every word of this; yet we do know 

 the one who has succeeded, and we argue that, if one can, at least one more 

 could, and then, if all pursued tlie same course, why could not all succeed ? 



Prof Mapes. — For the reason that all do not succeed in any business. It 

 is well known that many merchants fail, but no one imagines that, in con- 

 sequence, the whole business is rotten. I can truly say that with me dwarf 

 pear tree cultivation is profitable. The crop tlic past 3'ear will pa^'tlic cost 

 of the land and its cultivation, leaving all other crops for profit. 



Tobacco Growing. 



Mr. D. C. Payne, Dekalb, St. Lawrence Co., N. Y., wants the Club to de- 

 vote itself to the business of giving him full instructions about tobacco 

 growing. He says: "Perhaps you can refer me to some treatise on the 

 subject of tobacco culture, and the process of preparing it for market." 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — Yes, sir, we can. And we can tell Mr. Payne one 

 other thing that we have discovered: he does not take — or if he does, he 

 does not read — one of the eight or ten papers printed in this State devoted 

 to the interests of farmers. If he did he would have known that one of 

 them. Hie Agriculturist, published last summer half a score of premium 

 essays from tobacco growers; besides which, C. M. Saxton published a 

 work to the same end; and besides these, there is Geo. Geddes's most ex- 

 cellent essay, that has been published years ago in the Transactions of 

 the State Agricultural Society, and The Country Gentleman, and perhaps 

 other papers. 



A New Kind of Musk Melon. 



Mr. T. M. Hopkins writes from Geneva, N. Y., to the Farmers' Club as 

 follows : 



" Gentlemen : I would be glad to do some little good in your line, if I can, 

 though I am not a farmer. The following you may rely on : 



" I cultivated last year a small piece of land, (say seven-eighths of an 

 acre) outside of my garden. Early in the season I discovered several stalks 

 of water melons, musk melons, tomatoes, &c., which, so far as I could saj, 



