Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 389 



half the net price for his labor and his hired help. The butter sells 

 at forty to forty-five cents per pound at his railroad depot. It is sent 

 all over the south. He furnishes his dairyman and help first- 

 class frame cottages, neatly painted. He generally sows rye to winter 

 his calves, and feeds his cows on turnips, wheat straw steamed and 

 cut up with meal, and on corn-fodder on the stalks, spread in a pasture- 

 field. He had twenty-six steers fattening for market, and had sold 

 mules at $125 and $150. The mules and horses find market at home ; 

 the cattle are sent to Baltimore. His sheep average four pounds of 

 wool each ; this he sold unwashed in New York at forty-two and a 

 half cents per pound. This is not a section where one can live with- 

 out work, but it is a fine, healthy country, which yields good return 

 for labor, and Mr. Palmer considers it the best country for stock that 

 he ever saw. , 



The Closing Yeae. 

 The Chairman made the following remarks : This being the last 

 meeting of the Club this year, you will pardon me for using a few 

 minutes in remarks that may be found timely. I don't propose to 

 review at length the doings of the Club for the year now closing. 

 Through the press, each week, our proceedings are placed before, it is 

 estimated, more than one million of readers ; and I wish, in behalf of 

 the Club, to thank those gentlemen of the press for the faithful man- 

 ner our doings are reported, and for the valuable aid they render per- 

 sonally to the Club, and my thanks for the uniform kindness shown 

 to the president of the Club. Nor can I omit to add, that to several 

 members of the Club we are deeply obligated for the most valuable 

 papers read from time to time ; to add their names would be repeat- 

 ing what I have more than once said on occasions like the present, 

 and yet I feel that I should not do right to omit to call to your recol- 

 lection our indebtedness to that most able man, Professor George H. 

 Cook, of New Jersey. "We owe much to some of our correspondents, 

 who give us a carefully detailed statement of their experience and 

 of such matters as they think will be a benefit to the Club and the 

 readers of its doings. Let it be well understood, that the Farmers' 

 Club of the American Institute wishes to receive, as well as to give, 

 information. The Club is under great obligation to a goodly number, 

 for flower seeds sent for distribution, and especially for 6,000 papers 

 sent by the Rev. Samuel Griswold, Old Saybrook, Connecticut. No 

 other evidence need be furnished me to prove that he is fit and ripe 

 for the kingdom of heaven. To all I say " be not weary in well 



