S32 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



body makes long speeches, or if tbey do, they are considered boveg, and are 

 invited to shut up. My advice to every farming neighborhood that can 

 master ten intelligent men, who will attend a Farmer's Club, is at once to 

 form one. But don't make any formal constitution and by-laws, or con- 

 ventional rules; but make your meetings social and conversational. Let 

 your organization be of the simplest form possible, and avoid all formality 

 in your meeting, except just enough to preserve order Let one man act 

 as Secretary, to keep a few simple minutes, and advertise meetingi?, and 

 let them be open to everybody without fee or membership; and if money is 

 needed, ask anybody and everybody to contribute. If they won't do it, 

 but leave all the burden of the expense and business of the Club, to rest 

 on the shoulders of. three or four persons, give it up. The time has not 

 come for a Farmer's Club, in that neighborhood. It is a good plan, in the 

 country, to meet at each other's houses ; but to succeed, you must get your 

 wives and daughters interested A Farmer's Club is a barren wilderness, 

 unless smiled upon by woman. 



Mr. Quinn spoke of the practice of meeting at each other's houses as an 

 excellent one, where the members examine the farm and criticise all con- 

 nected with it. 



Several other gentlemen spoke in high terms of commendation of the 

 suggestions for forming Farmers' Clubs, as proposed by Mr. Robinson. 



PLANTING GRAPE-VINES. 



Peter G-. Bergen asked the best method of planting grape-vines. 



Mr. Fuller answered : Let the soil be dry, deep tilled and well drained. 

 It need not be extra rich. In fact, it may be too rich. If too highly 

 manured, a vine produces wood abundantly, but not fruit. 



Mr. Bergen said that wild vines grow around swamps, where the land 

 is wet. 



Mr. Fuller replied that wild vines do not grow in s^famps, but on the 

 borders, where the top of the soil drains naturally. If vines grow in wet 

 soils they are not fruitful. 



IRON — ITS USES AND ABUSES. 



This, one of the regular questions of the day, was called up. 



Peter G. Bergen, of Long Island, inquired how iron could be used to ad- 

 vantage on the farm. 



Mr. Pardee stated that he had used blacksmith's cinders to good advan- 

 tage upon various fruits. 



Mr. Lawton said that lime, neutralized iron in the soil, and that was 

 one of its greatest advantages in agriculture. 



Mr. Gale thought that the worst abuse of iron was making agricultural 

 implements of iron so light and poor that they were worthless. I have 

 been in the practice of plowing twelve to twenty inches deep, but I never 

 could buy a cast-iron plow that was heavy and strong enough to stand the 

 work. Our horticultural tools are beautiful, and some of them are good, 

 but heavier tools are many of them worthless. 



