268 Transactions of the American Institute. 



notorious marauder, renders ten birds' nests tenantless where lie leaves 

 one untouched. The question, then, is whether a few hundred grub.-, 

 devoured by the crow, are an offset against the several bushels ol 

 grubs, worms and noxious insects not destroyed by the score or more 

 of birds which perished in infancy or in embryo by this black villain i 

 Long since I adopted two maxims ; never to pass a burdock in blos- 

 som without drawing out my knife and cutting it up, and to kill every 

 crow I can. And these rules, especially the latter, are more like the 

 laws of the Medes and the Persians to-day than before I read the 

 recent discussion of the crow question by the Club. 



Various Soils Discussed. 



Mr. J. B. Smith, Patmos, Mahoning county, Ohio — The subject 

 of soils was discussed recently in your Club, and some time previous. 

 But it seemed to me not thoroughly; there was not sufficient 

 importance attached to the character of the soil. People in buying 

 land want to buy a naturally good soil ; and they should know by 

 external signs how to judge of it. A good or first-class upland soil 

 is worth twice if not ten times as much as a poor one. A first-class 

 soil in eastern Pennsylvania is the limestone land. The subsoil of 

 clay is sufficiently porous for the water to sink. It is naturally 

 drained ; lime and plaster act very beneficially on it. Then there is 

 red shale land ; that, when just right, is nearly equal to it. But 

 sometimes it is too dry and shaly ; and sometimes interspersed with 

 it there is heavy clay land, indicated by white oak timber, and not 

 large. The good land has black and red oak, hickory, and sometimes 

 some white oak and chestnut. Where the timber is small the shale 

 is too near the surface. This land is nice to work ; lime and plaster 

 act like a charm on it. 



Then there is a belt of land in Bucks county called the Newtown 

 vein, underlaid by gravel. The surface being a sandy loam, it is veiy 

 nice land to work, and very productive — perhaps equal to limestone 

 when in a high state of cultivation, in all but grazing ; on this soil 

 lime is also the charm. The low lands between, Trenton and Phila- 

 delphia are nice and good farming land, but rather sandy for grass. 

 Then there is white oak land in the east that is a cold, heavy clay, 

 very wet in wet weather, and it bakes and cracks in dry — pas- 

 sible for grass, oats and -wheat, if the winter don't kill it. Lime 

 benefits it. It requires under-draining. Blue shale land is cold and 

 wet. The kind of timber in a measure indicates the character of the 

 soil. In the east, black oak and hickory indicate good land. White 



