82 



announcements are made of the discovery 

 of some new variety of wheat, or corn, or 

 grass, or fruit, which, in point of product- 

 iveness, easiness ot cultivation, peculiar 

 adaptation to almost any soil or climate, 

 has never been equalled. Of course the 

 prices asked for these rare commodities 

 are commensurate with their advertised 

 value. For instance, one nurseryman an- 

 nounces the Dioscorea Batata, at one dollar 

 per single tuber. Another, with a more 

 reasonable conscience, asks only the fourth 

 of that sum. Iverson's Rescue Grass can 

 be procured, I understand, for $5 per peck. 

 The VVyando v Corn, the value of whicn 

 remains yet to be tested, finds large pur- 

 chasers at the modest rate of a penny per 

 grain, or about eight hundred dollars per 

 bushel. I might multiply these instances 

 indefinitely; but enough has been said to 

 convince every reasonable reader that the 

 glaring representations usually given of 

 these novelties in the agricultural world 

 should be received cum grano salis. 



In agricultural implements the same 

 mania prevails, though perhaps 10 a less 

 extent. The spirit of invention stalks 

 erect through the land, and new imple- 

 ments for the use of the fanner are 

 patented every day. Shrewd men are 

 engaged to sell territorial rights, and for- 

 tunes are frequently realized on inventions 

 as worthless, so far as practical utility is 

 concerned, as it is possible to conceive the 

 wood and iron of which they are compo- 

 sed to be. It is only a lew months since 

 territorial rights for a coin sheller were 

 sold in the vicmity of Pittsburg to the 

 amount of $80,000. Large sums of 

 money were invested in iis manufacture, 

 and visions of profits at the rate of hun- 

 dred's per cent, indulged in. Alas for 

 the vanity of human expectations ! Three 

 or four months have sufficed to explode 

 the bubble; and those who invested their 

 money in it, whether as purchasers of 

 rights or of machines, will now have an 

 Opportunity of reflecting upon their folly, 

 and of profiting by their dear- bought ex- 

 perience. And this is only one instance 

 out of a hundied I could name. 



Do not things of this kind demand seri- 

 ous consideration on the part of those who 

 really desire the advancement of our agri- 

 cultural interests? It will be difficult, [ 

 admit, to dt vise a plan by which the 

 credulous and unwary may be protected 



from these impositions ; but it appears to 

 me that much might be done by the edi- 

 tors of our agricultural journals towards 

 so desirable an end. If they would come 

 to the fixed determination to recommend 

 no seed or fruit or implement, unless con- 

 vinced by the most unimpeachable testi- 

 mon}' that, it was really meritorious, very 

 few of these im posters would succeed in 

 filching from farmers so much of -their 

 hard earnings. W. L. R. 



February 1858. 



Wood Sold in Small Quantities. 



We copy the following from the New 

 York Daily Times : — Few are probably 

 aware of the extent to which the practice, 

 so common to the cities of selling wood in 

 small quantities at the groceries, has come 

 to be adopted in this city. One establish- 

 ment engaged in bundling pine wood, will 

 convey an idea of the amount of wood 

 daily cut up and bundled for sale in this 

 way. Mr. John T Barnard, and an asso- 

 ciate, formerly kept a yard for the sale of 

 wood and charcoal. In 1856 he com- 

 menced to put up pine wood in small 

 bundles, for sale to families, and to the 

 grocers to sell again. He began with an 

 old blind horse, using an endless-chain 

 power, and employed three or four boys. 

 His sales amounted to only two or three 

 hundred bundles per week, for the first 

 month. Shortly, however, the little bun- 

 dles of kindling wood become popular, 

 and in three months the business doubled ; 

 he increased the number of his hands, and 

 in six months the business had doubled 

 again. He now sells from four to seven 

 thon>and bundles a day, and sometimes 

 nine thousand. He has a double-cylinder 

 engine, which runs four steam saws,. and 

 machinery for splitting up the wood. It 

 is then carried by means of an elevator to 

 the upper stories, where some thirty boys, 

 of the ages of 10 to 16 years, are kept 

 constantly bus}- putting it into compact 

 bundles of about eight inches in diameter, 

 which are secured by rope-yarns. The 

 yarns are all tied a given length, and they 

 are then fitted in, and wedged strongly by 

 a little wooilen maul, which each boy 

 uses for the purpose. Each boy can put 

 up from 200 to 300 bundles in a day, and 

 receives 16 cents per 100 bundles. They 

 earn from $2 50 to $3 50 per week, and 



