PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 225 



Prof. Mapes. — Mr. Smith, the originator of the system, has 

 experimented fourteen years, planting them in rows ten inches 

 apart, and then left a space of thirty inches, which was worked 

 with a horse hoe, and now gets thirty-four bushels per acre with- 

 out a particle of fertilizing matter, simply reversing the ground 

 every year, sowing where it was cultivated one year, and culti- 

 vating the ground that grew the grain last year. It has been 

 proved by these experiments that it lets in air and moisture suffi- 

 cient to convert the inert material in the soil into wheat food. 

 He finds also that the use of fertilizers increases his crop twenty 

 per cent., so that he find warming profitable, as well as working 

 the soil. He has found the advantage of subsoiling his land, for 

 that enables him to sow much thinner than ever before, the plants 

 tillering largely. So it is in this country — meadows run out that 

 are not subsoiled, while those that are subsoiled do not run out, 

 because the plants can tiller, and by a slight annual fertilizing 

 the meadows continue productive. Old meadows may be renewed 

 without breaking up, by merely running a subsoil plow through 

 the sod. I have practiced that plan to great benefit. 



Mr. Pardee spoke of a new plan of blanching celery by saw 

 dust. 



Prof. Mapes. — We blanch our celery by taking it up and laying 

 it on the ground, buts to buts in the center, and covering it like 

 a potato heap. In winter, when we want the celery, the mound 

 is upset by a crowbar, and the celery taken out and sent to mar- 

 ket. It keeps well and blanches well in that situation. 



LIGHTNING-PROTECTION OF BARNS AND FARM BUILDINGS. 



Solon Robinson. — I have mostly abstained from participating 

 in the discussion of this question, because I have very little faith 

 in lightning rods as protectors. As they are most commonly 

 constructed, they are not what they are generally conceived to 

 be — that is, attractors of an approaching thunder bolt, picking 

 it up on the sharp points, and conducting it down a carefully 

 insulated rod, to a safe deposit in the earth. If a lightning rod 

 ever performed such a service, I should like to be assured of the 

 fact. At present I have no faith. I believe that, when the 

 atmosphere is surcharged with electricity, any metallic substance 

 will absorb it just in proportion to its natural affinity, and if" 



[Am. Inst.] 



