From the Baltimore American. 
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF 
PATENTS. 
The last annual report of the Hon. HenrT 
L. Ellsworth, Commissioner of Patents, is a 
valuable document. It covers 335 large octavo 
pages, closely printed, and should be in the 
hands of every farmer, mechanic and manufac- 
turer in the country. There were granted in 
1843 no less than 531 new patents, and 446 ex- 
pired during the same time. The applications 
for patents during the same period numbered 
819. The whole number ot patents issued by 
the United States, up to the commencement of 
the present year, was 13,‘>23. The receipts of 
the Patent Office during 1843, wereS35,3l5; the 
expenditures 824,750 ; the sum returned to per- 
sons making application, whose claims to pa- 
tents were denied, ^5,026. There were expend- 
ed during the year, for the restoration of models, 
records and drawings, destroyed by the burning 
ot the old Patent Office, ©4,586. 
The report estimates the present population 
of the United States at 19,183,583; increase 
since 1840, 2,114,130 souls. 
A mass ol information relative to the recent 
improvements in Agricultural processes, imple- 
ments, machinery, &c , and in the useful ar s 
generally, is embodied in this document, in a 
mannei which commends the subjects treated of 
to the consideration of the reader in an especial 
manner. It abounds in Agricultural statistics; 
and among these we notice an interesting state- 
ment of the duties levied on the agricultural 
products of the United States by the different 
nations of the civilized world. The Agricultu- 
ral products ol our country for 1843, are esti- 
mated as follows. 
Wheat, bushels 100.310,856 
Corn, “ 494,618,306 
Oats, “ 145,929,966 
Rye, “ 24,280,271 
Barley, 3,220,721 
B uckwheat, “ .... 7,959,410 
Potatoes, “ 105,756,133 
Flax and Hemp, lbs 161,007? 
Hay, tons 15,419,807 
Tobacco, lbs 185,731,554 
Cotton, " 747,61)0,090 
Rice, “ 99,879,145 
Silk, “ 315,965 
Sugar, “ 66,400,310 
Wine, gallons 139,240 
A lull account is given ot a process, hitherto 
a sec-et, by which butter may be kept for years, 
fresh and sweet, in any climate, which we sub- 
join ; 
It has been discovered that most kinds of 
wood contain considerable quan'ities of pyrolig- 
neous acid, which decomposes salt in butter 
kept in suchtubs. The linden, or bass wood, 
is the only one which, it appears by careful ex- 
periment, is free from it ; others, it is stated, 
may be freed from it, and thus rendered suitable, 
by boiling three or four hours, well pressed un- 
der water. Much importance has always been 
attached to the preparing of butter, so thatit will 
keep on board of ships at sea and in warm cli- 
mates. A simple process is now practised, 
which is said to be effectual for this purpose; 
which is, to have good butter well churned, and 
worked and packed hard and tight in kegs of 
seasoned white oak; the head is then put in, 
leaving a small hole into which brine is poured 
to fill the vacant space ; and of so much impor- 
tance is it deemed, to prevent any bad taste, 
that the plugs for the hole must not be made ot 
cedar or pine, but of cypress or bass wood, as 
otherwise it would be injured. Alter which, 
these kegs are placed in a hogshead well filled 
with brine of lull solution, that will bear an egg, 
which is then headed up tight and close. Tne 
importance of this subject may be estimated 
from the fact that, as it appears, the standing 
contracts for butter, in our navy, that will keep 
at sea, are at twenty-six cents per pound, and 
lor cheese twenty cents per pound. It is now 
put up of good dairies in Orange county, and 
keeps perfectly. 
The appendix to the report contains a letter 
addressed to Mr. Ellsworth by G. Fox, Esq., a 
merchant of'Hartford, Conn., corroborating the 
above. 
The mode or process ol making “ Bommer’s 
Patent Manure,” which has been patented here, 
is describe 1 in the Report. 
Accounts are also given of many new and 
valuable plants, and improved varieties of 
grains, grasses, &c., which possess no ordinary 
interest lor the farmer. — Twelve thousand pack- 
ages of seeds were distributed from the Patent 
Office during the last year, “and when we re- 
collect,” remarks the Report, “that the im- 
provement of ten per cent, by the selection ot 
seeds would increase the value of the agricultu- 
ral products of this country, $30,000,000 annu- 
ally, the attempt thus lar made by this office 
must be deemed a good beginning for still more 
extended benefits.” 
Mr. Ellsworth makes mention of a hardy 
kind of rice which flourishes on the edge of the 
snows ol the Himalaya mountains, and states 
that he has ordered some of the seed, which he 
hopes to receive before long for distribution. — 
Tlie opinion is now entertained both in Europe 
and in this country that upland rice may be 
raised wherever Indian corn will ripen. 
A very interesting account is given of an ex- 
traordinary grain called the multicole rye, rais- 
ed in the west of France, the prolific qualities of 
which almost exceed belief. A few bushels of 
if, imported by Mr. E., have been distributed. 
The report remarks that “ the advancement 
of the arts from year to year taxes our credulity, 
and seems to presage the arrival of that period 
when human improvements must end.” We 
annex a few extracts from the report respecting 
a few of the most important improvements and 
inventions of the past year : 
In the operation of new furnaces recently 
erected in the Patent Office to warm it a curi- 
ous effect is produced by particular ventilation, 
and deserves remark, Ventilation is often ob- 
tained through the ceiling only; but, so far as 
it respects rooms heated by hot-air furnaces on- 
ly, this method is an incorrect one. If the 
temperature of the different parts of the room is 
tested by a theirnometer, it will be found that 
the upper part heats first; and if no outlet is 
given, the draught of hot air ceases, the room 
being filled. Ret an aperture be made at the 
top of the room, and the warffi air instantly es- 
capes ; but if an opening is made near the floor, 
the cold air within the room passes out, and 
the warm air descends to fill the space. An ex- 
periment, proving this, was tried in drying 
clothes in a room without ventilation, heated 
by air furnaces; the clothes that were in the 
upper part of the room dried well, while those 
in the lower part still continued moist. As 
soon, however, as an aperture was made for 
ventilation below, a draught was given to the 
furnace, the cold air expelled, and the clothes 
dried rapidly. The public will thus see how 
easily a serious difficulty in heating rooms m.ay 
be overcome. 
Some facts have been collected respecting 
plank roads. By means of a preparation, by ex- 
hausting the air, and then infusing sulphate of 
iron or other substances into the pores of wood 
for rail roads, it is said the wood has been ren- 
dered so hard that the iron wheel of the car 
leaves no trace after more than a year’s use of 
this “ metalic” wood. 
By a valuable macidne, with ten yoke of oxen 
and five hands, a ditch of suitable depth for 
draining lands, (14 inches deep, and 28 inches 
wide at the top,) ten miles may be excavated in 
one day, at an expense by contract, of not more 
than three cents per rod. A larger machine, 
with a greater number of oxen, will excavate a 
ditch three teet deep. The great importance ot 
such an instrument on the prairies of the West 
will at once be seen and acknowledged. 
The rapid improvement of the arts may help 
to account for the reduction of price as to many 
articles ol manufacture, and especially in some 
that are usually ranked among the necessaries 
of life. Individuals now in Congress can re- 
collect of having, thirt}< years since, purchased 
shirting at 62^ cents per yard, who the last year 
have bought that which wms equally good for 
11 cents per yard only. 
Hoisery, too,is now made in this country with 
astonishing rapidity, by the aid ot the po wer 
weaving loom — an American invention, and 
which has not yet been introduced into En- 
land. While there is a full day’s work eo knit 
by band two pairs of drawers, a girl here (at 
©2 50 per week) will make, by the power-loom, 
twenty pairs in the same time. A piece 28 inches 
in width, and 1 inch long, can be knit in one 
minute. 
The expense ot manufacturing this article 
has thus been reduced to about one-tenth of the 
former method by hand-looms, The importance 
of this improvement may be estimated from the 
fact that the quantity of hoisery used in the U. 
States is valued at $2,500,000 ; and the stock- 
ings, woven shirts, and drawers made in this 
country, at ©500,000. 
The little article of hooks and eyes is another 
illustration ot the same progress* of inventive 
industry. Thirty years ago, the price was 
©1.50 the gross pairs; now, the same quantity 
may be purchased from 15 to 20 cents. At one 
establishment in New Britain, Connecticut, 
80,000 to 100,000 pairs per day are made and 
plated by a galvanic batter)^ or the cold silver 
process. The value of the article consumed in 
a year in this country is said to be $750,000. 
Another article very essential to the husband 
man, ^rse sAoes, furnishes a similar proof of 
the bearing ot the progress of inventions. An 
improved kind of horse shoes made at Troy, 
New York, for some time past, is now sold at 
the price of only five cents per pound, ready 
prepared, to be used in shoeing the animal. At 
a factory recently erected, fifty tons of these are 
now turned out per day; and it is thought they 
can be made and sent to Europe at as good a 
profit as is derived from American clocks, which 
have handsomely remunerated the exporter. 
We shall content ourselves for the present 
with a notice of another improvement, which the 
