lS(i9.] -^^ ' [Wood 



A communication from Dr. R. J. Eoscoe, of Carlisle, Sco- 

 liarie comity, N. Y., to the Librarian, relative to certain sup- 

 ^Dosed fossils of high grade and great size found in the Lau- 

 rentian rocks of Essex county. New York, fragments of which 

 were brought by Dr. Le Conte, and deposited in the Museum 

 of the Academy of ISTatural Sciences, in Broad street, was 

 read and commented upon by the Librarian, who explained, 

 that they were plications of alternate layers of metamorphosed 

 limestone and sandstone deposits ; and that Dr. Leidy had 

 described similar, but much larger ones (one weighing per- 

 haps 20 tons), in the marble quarries near Attleborough, Penn., 

 in a subsilurian group of perhaps the same age. The sheets 

 of graphite covering the plicated layers prove, no doubt, the 

 organic origin of the calc-spar layers ; but the present form 

 of the mass ought not to be taken as the original form of the 

 animal organism. 



Dr. Geo. B. Wood communicated his experiments and views 

 on the revival of peach and other fruit trees, by the applica- 

 tion of potash to their ro(5ts. A discussion followed, in which 

 Dr. Coates, Dr. Emerson, Prof. Trego, Judge Lowrie and Gen. 

 Tyndale joined. 



Dr. G. B. Wood described a discovery which he believes tliat lie has 

 made, and which, if verified by further experiments, will be of great value 

 to the agricultural interests of the country. Potash, combined v/ith one 

 or more of the vegetable acids, is an essential ingredient in vegetables, 

 particularly in fruit, which, it is probable, cannot be produced without it. 

 Sometimes frviit-trees cease to bear, prematurely ; and, in relation to peach 

 trees, it is well-known that, in this vicinity, after i^roducing a few crops, 

 they not only cease bearing, but perish themselves in a short time ; whereas 

 their natural life is 50 or 60 years or more. The fact seems to be that pot- 

 ash is wanting in the soil in sufficient abundance to allow the tree to 

 continue to bear fruit continuously. Dr. Wood believes that by supplying 

 potash to the tree, so that it shall reach the radicals, and be absorbed, 

 the deficiency may be supplied ; the fruit-bearing pov^er is i'estored, and 

 the tree itself, if prematurely perishing, revived. He was led to this con- 

 clusion in the following way : Having a considerable number of peach 

 trees, which had entirely ceased to bear fruit, and were themselves obvi- 

 ously decaying, and believing, with most persons, that the cause lay in 

 the worms at the root of the tree, he put in operation a plan which he had 

 seen his father perform, more than fifty years since, of digging around 

 the base of the stem a hole four or five inches deep, scraping away all 

 the worms that could be found burrowing at the junction of the stem and 

 root, and filling the hollow thus made with fresh wood-ashes, recently 



