APRIL 18, 1884.] 
and to these, and the auxiliary chemical work 
which they involve, the residue of its energies 
has been directed. These experiments include 
comparisons of green rye with rye ensilage, 
and of dried fodder-corn with corn ensilage, 
as food for milch-cows; field trials with fer- 
tilizers on various crops and on various typical 
soils in the state; experiments upon sorghum 
as a sugar-producing plant, and preliminary 
work on sweet-potato disease. 
Not all of these experiments are of the 
highest order ; but they are accurate and pains- 
taking, and they touch the actual interests of 
the farm more closely than any mere laboratory 
SCIENCE. 
493 
work, however excellent, can do. The experi- 
ments on sorghum were mainly upon the effect 
of fertilizers upon the yield of sugar, and gave 
the interesting result that the yield of sugar 
was more favorably affected by potash than by 
any other single substance, and that, with the 
addition of nitrogen to the potash, the largest 
yield of sugar per acre was obtained. Sul- 
phate of potash surpassed the ‘ muriate’ in 
every case. Both sorghum bagasse and seed 
(the whole plant cut for fodder) and sorghum 
ensilage proved very satisfactory fodders for 
cows and pigs. 
INTELLIGENCE FROM AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC STATIONS. 
GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS. 
Geological survey. 
Mineral springs in eastern Tennessee. — Mr. F. M. 
Pearson, who carried on topographic work for the 
survey last summer in eastern Tennessee, reports 
that the section of the state upon the map of which 
he is now engaged is full of mineral springs belong- 
ing to the classes of sulphur and chalybeate springs. 
He mentions particularly Bean’s Station Valley, in 
Grainger and Hawkins counties, as being the locality 
of some twenty springs, a number of which have 
been improved, and are places of resort. On the 
north-western side of the valley lies the ‘ Poor Valley 
Ridge,’ which extends for a distance of some thirty 
miles from the north-east to the south-west. This 
ridge is separated from the Clinch Mountain, which 
is on the north-west and parallel with it, by a depres- 
sion or hollow known as ‘ Poor Valley.’ In the latter, 
numerous small streams rise, separated by low di- 
vides, which, after flowing in the valley for short dis- 
tances either south-west or north-east, turn and reach 
Bean’s Station Valley through gaps in the Poor Valley 
Ridge. At every one of these gaps on the south-east 
side of the ridge, sulphur springs are found. Most 
of these springs are unimproved, as far as conven- 
iences for using the waters are concerned; but those 
at which hotels have been built are among the most 
popular places of resort in the state. Beginning at 
the south-west, where the ridge abuts against the 
Clinch Mountain, the first springs of importance are 
* Lee’s Springs,’ which are situated at the extremity 
of the Poor Valley Ridge, or rather partly between it 
and the Clinch Mountain. Powder Spring (named 
from the odor of the sulphuretted-hydrogen gas), at 
Powder Spring Gap, five miles farther to the north- 
east, is the next important locality. Following the 
ridge fifteen miles from this point, toward the north- 
east, brings one to ‘ Tates Springs,’ one of the most 
noted localities in Tennessee. There are good ac- 
commodations here; and stages connect with the 
Eastern Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia railroad 
at Morristown. Stages connect ‘ Lee’s Springs’ with 
Strawberry Plains, a station on the same railroad. 
Hale’s red and white sulphur springs, in Hawkins 
county, five miles north of Rogersville, are also re- 
sorted to, and are on the same line as the other 
springs enumerated. There are also several chalybe- 
ate springs on or near the same line, in Hawkins 
and Grainger counties. Other well-known watering- 
places, determined by the presence of mineral springs, 
in the region surveyed by Mr. Pearson, are ‘ Mont- 
vale Springs’ in Blount county, ‘Oliver Springs’ in 
Anderson county, ‘Austin Springs’ in Washing- 
ton county, and ‘Galbraith’s Springs’ in Hawkins 
county. 
Burk’s Garden, in Virginia. — The peculiar topo- 
graphical system of long narrow valleys, with streams 
flowing from their opposite ends to the middle, and 
thence at right angles across or through one of its 
boundary ridges, which is one of the striking features 
of the physical geography of the country surveyed 
by Mr. Morris Bien in the southern Appalachians 
(described in Science, No. 56), gradually changes, as 
it is traced north-eastward from the valley of east 
Tennessee, until in Tazewell county, the northern 
county of south-western Virginia, is found the 
most southerly instance of a topographical feature 
common in Pennsylvania. This is Burk’s Garden, 
a beautiful oval valley, eight miles long by four anda 
half miles wide. It is surrounded by a ridge aver- 
aging more than twelve hundred feet inheight. The 
valley contains some of the richest blue-grass land 
in the state. Its drainage forms one of the heads 
of Wolf Creek, which affords numerous examples of 
sink-hole drainage, so common in the area surveyed 
by Mr. Bien. This stream leaves the valley by flow- 
ing through the western side of the oval range in a 
deep and rugged gap, or cafion as it would be called 
in the west. This valley well deserves the name of 
‘garden,’ for it is one of the most beautiful spots in 
Virginia. The first glance recalls Johnson’s descrip- 
tion of ‘ Happy Valley’ in Rasselais, and it is without 
doubt destined to become a popular mountain resort. 
