AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 451 



Another thing. It is a great defect I think, that Putnam 

 county does not, nor has not, for years gone by, raised her own 

 home consmnption of bread stuflfs . Gentlemen who have addressed 

 us at some of our previous fairs, have told us from the statistics 

 of our county that we are on the decline in the value of our pro- 

 ductions. I have been unwilling to believe this, but I begin to 

 think it too true. 



Take a ride through oui* county, wiien harvest is over You 

 will not see men ditching, walling, fencing and clearing their 

 farms as in years gone by. We seem to have come almost to a 

 stand still in this matter, and that we are trying to get our liveli- 

 hood without work, both the rich and the poor. Certainly tliis 

 is not because w^e have none of these things necessary to be done, 

 or is it because we are unable to do them, then have we become 

 poor indeed. Such had better go west, as they say, where land 

 will produce without cultivation. 



The Secretary read the following translations made by him : 



PEPPERS. 



I take the following valuable method for raising peppers, from 

 the U. S. Patent office report for 1854 : 



" When the plants are about six inches high, put some guano 

 or poultry dung on the ground about the plants (not on them), 

 stir it perfectly into the soil, and the crop of peppers will be 

 greatly improved." (Forty years ago, I w^ould have given a hun- 

 dred dollars to have known so much as that.) 



Chinese Yam (Dioscorea Eatatas), translated from the Journal 

 De La Societe Imperiale et Centrale D'Horticulture. Napoleon 

 3d, Protecture, Paris, November and December, 1855. 

 Sessio7i of JYov ember 8, 1855. 



Mon'r. Cappe, chief gardener of the economical plants, in the 

 Museum of Natural History, in the name of Mon'r. Decaisne, 

 presented magnificent tubers of the Dioscorea Batatas. The small 

 pieces of the roots were planted in April, 1854. These all ac- 

 quired a considerable size, w^eighing from 500 to 1,000 grammes. 



Many of them have voluminous ramifications. M. Decaisnes 

 says that the plants raised from pieces of the root, are preferable 

 to those from the Bulhilles — little balls which grow on the vine, 

 as others do on the Dragon lily. The pieces of root or bulbilles 

 should be planted without being too dry. The Bulbilles should 

 remain in the ground the first year, when they attain the size of 

 a finger, Messrs. Chevet, Pepin and de Montigny, had tasted 



