356 
FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
.foreign ^tgriculiural Sims. 
By the steamer America, we are in receipt of our 
foreign journals to the 5th of October. %t- 
Markets. — Cotton has been continually advancing 
since our last. Flour is 6d. per barrel less. Grain, 
a slight decline. Tallow, an advance. Naval Stores, 
Hice, and Tobacco, improving. 
Extraordinary Fowl. — Mr. Moorman, of the Ship 
Tavern, Bristol, has in his possession an extraordinary 
barndoor foul, -which has laid some enormous eggs, 
measuring eight inches in length, and six inches and a 
half in circumference, and weighed four ounces each. 
The fowl is not larger than the common size. Her 
extraordinary achievements have excited a good deal 
of curiosity in the neighborhood. — Sunday Times. 
Potatoes from Cuttings. — Our potatoes from cut- 
tings are still growing vigorously, while those planted 
in the usual way are diseased. Although no chemist, 
it is my opinion that a proper quantity of starch is 
wanting to bring the potato to maturity. From 7 lbs. 
of potatoes, the produce of whole sets, planted in the 
usual way, on the sixth of April, I had 1 lb. 3§ oz. of 
starch. From the same sort raised from cuttings, put 
in on the fourth of May, the produce was 1 lb. 1 34- oz,, 
showing a difference of 9f oz. I observed, when tak- 
ing the first water from the pulp, that the one from the 
former was a very much darker bwwn than that from 
the latter, which was a muddy white. I have taken 
up my white-blossomed kidneys, the produce of tubers 
from cuttings of 1849. They are all sound; I have 
obtained 30 bushels off six rods. — Gardeners' Chroni- 
cle. 
The Great Industrial Exhibition of 1851. — The 
London papers contain an engraving of the building 
now erecting for this, the World's Great Show. It is to 
be composed, principally, of glass and iron, and will be 
1 848 feet long, and 408 feet broad, covering 18 acres 
of ground. The roof will be supported by 3,230 hol- 
low cast-iron pillars, from 14 to 20 feet long, each of 
which is a water conductor from the peculiar-shaped 
roof, which is composed of a succession of low ridges 
of glazed sash, which conduct the falling water into nu- 
merous wooden gutters, which discharge through the 
supporting pillars. The centre of the immense struc- 
ture is crossed by a transept 108 feet high, enclosing a 
row of large elm trees that stand in the way, but are 
too large to be removed, and must not be destroyed. 
The glass used will weigh 400 tons, and covers 900,000 
superficial feet. The roof and south side will be cov- 
ered with canvass to break the glare of the sun, which 
would otherwise be intolerable, even in smoky London. 
Besides the ground, walls, and roof, to exhibit articles 
upon, there will be a gallery 24 feet wide, nearly a mile 
in length, which can be increased if necessary. The 
cost of the building completed, is about $750,000. 
The cubic contents of this largest room ever built in 
the world, will be 33,000,000 feet It is to be amply 
ventilated, but what provision is made for warming it, 
does not appear. The space allotted for exhibition of 
articles from the United States is 85,000 superficial 
feet, which, large as it appears, will be found too small. 
Any information required by those desirous of becom- 
ing exhibitors, can be obtained from the Central Com- 
mittee, at Washington. 
Draining of the Lake of Haarlem. — Dr. J. V. C. 
Smith, editor of the Boston Medical Journal, who is 
now in Europe, in his editorial correspondence, written 
from Holland, mentions his visit to the Lake of Haar- 
lem, which is now being drained by raising the water 
by steam engines into a canal, dug to carry it off 
to the sea. 
Six miles from Amsterdam is the inland Lake of 
Haarlem, 21 niles long by 11 in width, which, three 
hundred years ago, was found to be perceptibly in- 
creasing, by sin oting its waters further and further, 
and covering up the land, threatening the first commer- 
cial port of the realm with destruction by flowing in 
upon its back. Various schemes, at that remote epoch, 
were devised by able counsellors, to stay the threaten- 
ing danger. Three Dutch engineers, of acknowledged 
ability, proposed draining off the water, first raising it 
by windmills. They are entitled to remembrance from 
having suggested the very plan adopted by the gov- 
ernment, in 1849, for inverting an impending calamity. 
Seven years since, delay being no longer safe, a canal 
was dug around the whole circumference of the lake, 
averaging 200 feet in width, by 10 feet deep. 
Three monster steam engines are housed on the side 
of the lake, some six or eight miles apart, each moving 
eight monstrous pumps. All the pistons are raised at 
once, at every revolution of the machinery, elevating 
15,000 gallons of water, which is emptied into the ca- 
nal, whence it is hastened by a fourth engine, faster 
than it would otherwise move, to the Zuyder Zee, and 
thus it reaches the sea, 1 5 miles distant. In April, 
1849, the pumps, worked by three of the mightiest 
steam engines, perhaps, ever constructed, were set in 
motion ; and up to this date, July 25th, 1850, have low- 
ered the contents of the lake seven feet. By next 
April, it is anticipated that the bottom will be fairly 
exposed, and all the water conveyed away from its 
ancient basin. 
Electricity Applied to a Mare in Foal. — The follow- 
ing is from the " Cambrian " newspaper : — On Satur- 
day morning, week, a mare in foal, belonging to William 
Chambers, jun., Esq., was electrified at the South- 
Wales Pottery, Llanelly. Not being able to put the 
animal into the room where the machine was placed 
for operating upon her, she was stationed outside, near 
the doorway, and was brought into contact with the 
instrument by means of long, and remarkably slight 
brass chains. The chains being fastened round the 
fetlocks of the fore legs, the first shock was given, but 
so slightly as not to be strong enough to kill a mouse, 
but it started the mare so that she fell completely back 
on her haunches, at the same time snapping the small 
chains in pieces. After raising her, and bringing her 
to the door again, the position of the chains was alter- 
ed, by being placed so that the shock might pass dia- 
gonally through her, and the second shock succeeded 
much better than the first. It was quite evident that 
the first had frightened her, for when the charges of the 
Leyden jar were tried, previous to giving the second 
shock, she started at the sounds of them. A feAV weeks ago 
she had a seton placed on the back bone, near the hind 
quarters, while all the affection, (ossification at the back 
of the neck,) lay in the neck, and close upon the base 
of the skull. This was caused by a kick on the spot 
where the seton was placed. The poor animal is now 
much better since she was electrified, as we saw her 
on Monday, running after a fine colt, a feat she could 
not have performed on Friday evening ; for, till that 
time, she could not, by herself, get up, if once she 
dropped. The result lias been so far favorable, that 
we believe it is proposed by the enterprising owner to 
put her under the same operation a few times more, 
although some, in attendance on Saturday week, fan- 
cied more evil than good might arise from the first op- 
eration. 
Potato Culture in Ireland. — By the late report on 
the potato crop of Ireland, it appears that the average 
for the whole of that island gives an increase of pota- 
to cultivation, the present year, of 109 per cent., or up- 
wards of double, as compared with 1849. 
