246 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



secution on account of it. They then put peat charcoal into the 

 cess-pool whence the manure had been taken. The nuisance was 

 forthwith abated, and the liquid from it became an innoxious 

 clear stream, from which, at some distance, a pic-nic party, un- 

 conscious of its source, were supplying themselves with drink. 

 Probably better and more manageable things than peat charcoal 

 may be found, and many improvements made, when the establish- 

 ment of a system of manure saving in towns and cities shall be 

 generally and properly taken up. 



AGEICULTURAL PREMIUMS IN OLD TIMES. 



The trustees of the Massachusetts society for promoting agri- 

 culture, publishes the following, viz : 



' ' To the person who shall discover a cheap and effectual 

 method of destroying the canker worm, and give evidence there- 

 of to the satisfaction of the trustees, on or before the first day of 

 October, 1803. A premium of one hundred dollars or the So- 

 ciety's gold medal. 



2. For a heap of best compost manure from the common mate- 

 rials on a farm — for not less than two hundred tons — with a de- 

 scription of the method — fifty dollars. 



9. For the most thrifty trees, from seed not less than 600, and 

 not less than at the rate of 2400 per acre of oak, ash, elm, sugar- 

 maple, beech, black or yellow birch, chesnut, walnut or hickory, 

 twenty -five dollars ; if all of oak, fifty dollars; claim on or be- 

 fore 1st October, 1806. 



10. For accurate analysis of the constituent parts of several 

 fertile soils, respectively so of poor soils. And how by actual 

 experiment to remedy the evils, so that it can be practised by com- 

 mon farmers, fifty dollars. And if it shall appear to the satis- 

 faction of the trustees, that the improvement is more than equal 

 to the expense, then an additional one hundred dollars. 



JOHN AVERY, Sec>y. 



CRIMSON CLOVER— (Tn/o/iMm iiicarnatum). 

 " Many of us remember the fate of it when first tried here 

 nearly a quarter of a century since, how it generally failed, and 

 how very striking were its mass of rich crimson blossoms in tliose 

 fields where it did succeed. Such places, however, being com- 

 monly those where the farmer had bestowed the least labor; where 

 he had without the aid of the plow, merely scarified the surface 

 or harrowed its seeds upon the hard stubble lands. One over 

 kind to this clover, almost lost it, while on the hard ridges in a 



