320 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



that quantity, and will withstand more dry weather — then deep plowing 

 and subsoiling maybe needful, may be scientific. Bi^ if, on the other 

 hand, the roots of the grain and grass crops do naturally incline to the sui*- 

 face of the ground, where only the warming and vivifying influence of the 

 sun, and the gases carried down by the dews and gentle rains, can effectii- 

 ally reach them ; and if a soil containing a large per cent, of vegetable 

 matter is preferable, and will hold moisture better than one containing a 

 fnuch less per cent — then deep plowing and subsoiling are not needful — ai-e 

 not scientific — unless the subsoil is richer in the elements needed by the 

 plant than the soil itself. 



" COTTON THE NUMBER OF SEEDS AND PLANTS TO THE ACRE. 



"According to the authorities quoted in tlie Farmers' and Planters' Ency- 

 clopaedia, on the cultivation of cotton, one bushel of seed per acre is the 

 usual quantity planted in the cotton States, where seed is plenty and cheap. 

 When they consider the plants out of danger, they thin it with the hoe to 

 from six to twenty-four inches apart. But as no person would recommend 

 leaving the plants closer than a foot in the row where the land is good, and 

 adapted to the plant, and the rows three feet apart — this would require 

 less than 15,000 plants per acre. I have received from the Patent Office 

 several bushels of cotton seed, weighing 26 pounds to the bushel, and, in 

 numbers, 4,000 seed to the pound. If 15,000 plants are all that can grow 

 on an acre to advantage, 20,000 seed, if good, will suflSce to plant that 

 acre, or one bushel to five acres will be sufficient, where the seed is scarce. 



" Of ten leading varieties of grapes, fruited here last year, they all 

 blighted more or less, except the Delaware and Eebecca, which ripened 

 their fruit perfectly. They and the Diana were very superior. The Elsin- 

 borough (not Elsinborg, as the fruit-growers have it) is considered here, 

 where it originated, by some, as good as any other grape. Downing's 

 description of it is good, but he calls it Elsinborg, and says it originated 

 in a village of that name in Salem county. I resided in Elsinborough 

 township abo-^ forty years ago, near by where the grape originated, and 

 can say there is no such village there, and never has been.- It was for- 

 merly called the Smart grape here, after the originator, but as the original 

 vine and the family have been gone many years, it is now universally called 

 here the Elsinborough grape. 



"Prince sa.ys jjositively in the late pomological discussions: ' In Cali- 

 fornia, naturally, there is no good grape.' Barry speaks of the large black 

 grape of Sonora, but says : It now proves to be quite identical with the Zin- 

 findael. What that grape is, he does not inform us — does not descrilie it. 



" What do you know of the El Dorado grape, brought here from Califor- 

 nia? Is it identical with the last named, with bunches over a foot long, 

 and weighing several pounds to the bunch here — many of them without 

 seeds, skin thin, grapes pronounced good by those who have tasted them ? " 



Prof. Mapes. — Upon the subject of subsoiling mentioned by this corres- 

 pondent, his statement shows that he did not give the experiment a fair 

 trial. There are many situations where the surface soil is light and pro- 

 ductive of surface crops which are not benefited at first by deepening the 



