290 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMEEICAN INSTITUTE. 



portionally, the greatest number of inhabitants in the civilized world — 1,400 

 to a square mile — yet this dense population, with no other important 

 resource, earn a livelihood mainly from the products of the vine, although 

 the cultivators are obliged to cover every bare rock with soil, which they 

 carry on their backs to places inaccessible to vehicles, in order that no spot 

 on which a vine can grow may be allowed to lie in waste." 



Col. H. answered several questions about growing almonds — that the 

 trees are as hardy as peaches, though a little more liable to injury from frost 

 in spring, as they blossom two weeks earlier. The growth is rapid, say five 

 feet the first year from the bud. At three years old, the produce is five to 

 fifteen pounds of fruit per tree. When he grew them in Wisconsin, he used 

 sometimes to throw water on the trees early in the morning, when there 

 was danger of injury from the frost of the previous night. 



Altogether, the statements of Col. H. gave great satisfaction to those 

 present, and he had to beg to be excused from occupying all the time. He 

 wished the Club to proceed with other business. 



West Jersey Soil. 



Mr. Jacob Hugg, Jacobstown, Burlington, N. J. — For some time past I 

 have read with considerable interest the doings and suggestions of your 

 Club. Whatever is of interest in the noble work of tilling the soil, grow- 

 ing fruit, raising and improving stock, in a word, developing the resources 

 of our great and glorious country, deeply interests me. Though not now 

 a farmer, yet I get many valuable hints from your conversations and from, 

 the inquiries of your correspondents, which J communicate to my neigh- 

 bors and friends who are so engaged. 



I was surprised at the remarks of Mr. Juddat the Fruit Growers' Associa- 

 tion in reference to the southern portion of the State of New Jersey, in which 

 he says such loamy situations were rare, that the sand was undulating, and 

 crops out very often, or lies so near the surface as to make the land 

 barren, &c. 



Now, that there are many sand fields scattered about over Southern and 

 West Jersey, no one will deny, and that there is sand in the vicinity of 

 Hammondtown, and indeed all over, or nearly all over South Jersey, all 

 will admit, but to say that "the sand lies so near the surface as to make 

 the land barren," is at variance with facts which would astonish Mr. Judd. 

 Nor is his other remark nearer stating the truth, viz : " Such loamy situa- 

 tions were rare." 



Now, the facts are these : In many parts of South Jersey, what were 

 considered worthless, worn out sand farms years ago, are now found to be 

 productive and very profitable. The reasons are simply these — under- 

 draining, deep ploughing, marling and liming. Farms that could have 

 been bought for from ten to twenty dollars per acre, fifteen or twenty 

 years ago, can not now be bought for less than one hundred dollars per 

 acre. And what was considered pine bai-rens and scrub-oak lands (the 

 more of which a man owned the worse he was ofi^, are now selling at from 

 twenty to fifty dollars per acre, and when once cleared, which is not very 



