Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 319 



Mr D. B. Bruen — I have used these scraps for many years, always 

 cooking them with the feed. By the way, it is a saving of forty per 

 cent to cook the feed given to poultry. 



The Chairman — If the pork scraps are known to be, or suspected 

 of being, made up of deleterious substances, buy beef scraps, which 

 are as cheap and better. I use the latter, keeping the cake, which is 

 a large one, and pressed solid, on a raised platform or box, and 

 always where the fowls can reach it. 



Liming Land. 

 ' The question, which is the best lime for agricultural purposes, being 

 under consideration, Professor Whitney said that depends upon the 

 character of the soil. On heavy, wet land, lately drained, stone 

 lime, evenly distributed, will be best. On low-lying, sandy alluvials 

 I would recommend air-slaked and pulverized. On dry uplands, 

 chalks or calcareous marls, if he has them. As a rule, the weaker 

 and less caustic limes should be applied to land having the least 

 humus or organic matter, and the caustic and freshly slaked to that 

 containing the most. The kind of other manures used must also be 

 taken into consideration. I would not apply strong barnyard manure 

 simultaneously with caustic lime, but would put on the lime say early 

 in the fall, and the ammoniated manure in the spring. There is a 

 curious discordance between the teachings of some leading chemists 

 as to whether lime containing magnesia is hurtful to the growth of 

 plants. The older chemists say that it is, and give a very plausible 

 reason to account for it, while some of the more recent, Professor 

 Johnson among them, take the opposite course. The matter is of 

 much real importance to tillage in many parts of Pennsylvania, where 

 magnesian limestone abounds. And if some farmer will try two fields 

 with the same crop and under the same conditions, only one manured 

 with common and the other with magnesian limestone, and report 

 the result, it will be very useful to agriculturists in many places. 



Peesekving Sweet Potatoes. 

 Mr. Bryan Tyson, Washington, D. C. — I saw in a recent report of 

 your Club that Mr. Fuller, in response to an inquiry as to the best 

 method of preserving sweet potatoes, recommended dry sand. I have, 

 as I consider, thoroughly tested this plan, and will briefly give a por- 

 tion of my experience therein, believing that under some circumstances 

 potatoes thus treated will keep well, and,' under others, not at all. 

 In the first place, I would suggest that the potatoes remain in the 



