PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 61 



" Grapes do well here, and if I were to get a few vines additional to the 

 above, what kind or kinds shall I purchase? 



"I noticed a recipe of yours, reported in the proceedings of the Club, for 

 curing hams, and upon trial we find it excellent. 



" Now, is there a way to corn beef so that it shall keep sweet through 

 the summer without salting it so as to render it tough and unpalatable? 

 I have always cured it like hams. It is tender and good but will not keep 

 long in warm weather without scalding the brine, and this seems to injure 

 the meat. 



" What is the best plant for a reliable hedge fence? And where stone 

 is not to be had, and timber is getting scarce, would you advise an attempt 

 at such a fence? 



" One more inquiry and I will try your patience no longer. Would you 

 recommend planting a small orchard of dwarf pears for market purposes, 

 thinking that with proper culture they might prove a profitable invest- 

 ment? 



" I am commencing farming on a worn out but naturally first rate soil, 

 twenty miles northwest of Detroit, Michigan, much in debt, and many a 

 time would give my last dollar for the opinion of a man who knows whereof 

 he affirms." 



Mr. Lawton answered that Buist's Kitchen Gardener is a good work for 

 such a man, and so is a small book published by Fowler & Wells. 



Mr. Pardee said: I have sent him Dr. Grant's catalogue as the best work 

 on grapes, and I also recommend him to plant standard pears. About 

 beef-curing, I think that the receipt mentioned will do it by adding more 

 salt, and, perhaps, more sugar. 



Solon Robinson. — Evidently this gentleman has not read all the proceed- 

 ings of the Club, or else he would not ask what grapes to plant. That 

 question was most fully answered a few weeks since. As to a hedge plant 

 I cannot recommend a single one. 



The best remedy is to dispense with fences and keep the cattle out of the 

 highways. 



The New Law about Stock on the Highways. 



The allusion to cattle on the highways elicited a spirited discussion 

 upon the new law of the State of New York, which absolutely prohibits 

 stock running upon the highways, and authorizes every man to shut up 

 any animal found at large, and give notice to a justice of the peace or 

 commissioner of roads, who will assess a penalty, and order the animal 

 sold if not redeemed. This law was highly approved by all but one man 

 from New Jersey, who denounced it as an act of oppression to the poor 

 man, and that sort of ad captandem argument always resorted to by the 

 advocates of universal liberty to cattle, hogs, geese and goats. 



Solon Robinson. — It would be far better for all who own land to pay the 

 expense of keeping a cow for every poor man in the community, than to 

 allow them to run in the highway; and as to the argument that a poor man 

 has a right to feed his cow upon the grass that grows upon the roadside, 

 that is not so, for no man has any more right to the grass on the outside of 

 my fence than he has to that on the inside. The public have the right of 



