302 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



The undersigned hope that the American Institute will not refuse to 

 enter into amicable relations with the young society, and contribute to 

 its prosperity by exchanges, which shall be mutual in all useful experience. 



The statutes admit members home and abroad of both sexes. Residents 

 of the city may be present as visitors only once (it being proper that they 

 should become paying members). Annual payment by members, ten rou- 

 bles, (about six dollars) in advance, or one hundred roubles for life-mem- 

 bership. The failure in annual payment, after a second notice to pay, for 

 one year, loses membership. 



The members elect their officers. The society meets once a month, — 

 oftener if desired. An annual meeting hears a summary of the year's 

 transactions. The secretary prepares all the papers for publication. 



Alterations in these statutes (by-laws) may be proposed at monthly 

 meetings by the president, in writing, when desired by ten members, and 

 enacted by a vote of three-fourths of the members present. 



(Southern Homestead, Nashville, Tennessee. Nov. 19th, 1859.) 

 SURFACE MANURING. — BY JUDGE FRENCH. 



Some of the farmers of England still spread manure on the surface for 

 months before ploughing in. The Mark Lane Express, of London, boldly 

 asserts that Mr. Hudson, from long experience, says: "Farm yard dung 

 is improved by an exposure of months on the surface of the ground, and 

 that the crops are better from dung exposed than on lands in which it has 

 been covered in the usual moist half-rotted condition. That this is a fact, 

 although it clashes with chemistry. That Prof. Samuel W. Johnson, of 

 Yale College, and others, it seems, are " convinced that manures hauled out 

 and spread broadcast upon the soil during the fall and winter do not suffer 

 any material loss of ammonia, because that requires heat and fermentation 

 to carry it off, and in fall and winter there is not heat enough to produce 

 fermentation ; that "blow, rain, snow and freeze don't lose the ammonia." 

 Prof. Mapes is opposed to this, and he is not only a man of science, but 

 one of the most successful farmers in getting a profit from his land within 

 my knowledge, and so we cannot help having more faith in science illus- 

 trated by practice, than in practical results by men who pretend to no 

 scientific knowledge. The man of science is always a more accurate and 

 reliable observer than the merel}^ practicfri. man. 



THE SECKEL PEAR. 



We wish to preserve the history of this distinguished seedling, which, 

 as an example of what may come from planting seeds of fruit trees, and so 

 does the famous seedling, the Duchesse d'AngouIome and some others. 



The original Seckel pear tree was found on the farm of Lawrence 

 Seckel, at "The Neck," late P;issayunk township, a few miles southerly 

 of Philadelphia. The farm was bought by Stephen Girard, and is now in 

 the hands of his trustees, the City Corporation. Seckel was a wine mer- 

 chant, on the corner of Market street and Fourth street. The tree stood 



