6S 
FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
By the steam-ship Hibernia, we are in receipt of 
our foreign journals to January 4th. 
Markets. —Ashes a slight improvement. Cotton 
has advanced £d. per lb. The stock at Liverpool, on the 
1st of January, was 1,055,270 bales, against 903.107, 
same time last year. F Lour no change in prices. Provi¬ 
sions remain the same as per our last, and meet with a 
ready sale. Guano is quite firm, and a large trade an¬ 
ticipated in it the coming year. Naval Stores little 
doing. Rice dull. Tallow the same. Tobacco firm. 
Wool in fair request, and an increased market antici¬ 
pated for it. 
Money .—The rate of interest for first-rate paper was 
from 31 to 5 per cent., which is an advance. 
The Potato Crop .—The alarm respecting the defi¬ 
ciency in this crop is on the decrease ; there seems 
to be no great distress for provisions in Ireland. 
The Corn Laws .—The Peel ministry being rein¬ 
stated in power, there is little prospect of the corn 
laws being abolished at present. It is supposed that 
a fixed duty of about ten shillings per quarter will 
finally be settled upon. 
Smithfield, Show of Fat Cattle .—This came off in De¬ 
cember, and was well attended. A Hereford ox took 
the first prize of the gold medal. 
The Income of the English Agncultural Society the past 
year reached the large amount of £9,291, over $46,000! 
It has 6,733 members, and is adding to them and its 
funds every year; thus doing an incalculable amount 
of good to the farming interest. 
To Sweeten Butter .—By adding 2£ drachms of carbon¬ 
ate of soda to 3 lbs. of either fresh or salt butter, pos¬ 
sessing a disagreeable flavor, renders it perfectly sweet. 
Soda produces the same results when added to other 
culinary greases, as dripping, lard, &c.— Far. Herald. 
Vines in Dwelling-houses .—A singular instance of the 
growth of a vine may be seen at the Angel Inn, 
Halesworth, Suffolk ; a large portion is trained in the 
front of the house and stables, but a branch 23 feet in 
length is conveyed through the windows of a sitting- 
room, crossing the ceiling to the centre of the house, 
where it is trained to a lofty skylight, producing fruit 
in abundance. Might not some of our mechanics and 
others enjoy this delicious fruit, by introducing the 
vine in their work-shops in a similar manner 1 ?— Gar.. 
Chron . 
On the Choice of a Variety of Oat for Cultivation .— 
Strongly suspecting that the real value of different va¬ 
rieties of oat was unknown, and that weight by bushel 
was even less applicable to this grain than to wheat, I 
procured samples of nine sorts, carefully selected by 
Messrs. Lawson, of Edinburgh. I have not had them 
compared chemically; I leave that to those great and 
wealthy bodies, associated for the ostensible purpose 
of conferring benefits on the farmer. 1 have followed 
a simple mechanical process, which any one may fol¬ 
low. The weight of each sort per bushel having been 
ascertained, the following table was constructed ac¬ 
cording to the results : 
Weight per bushel of lbs. 
Siberian Oat.45 
Sandy.52 § 
Kildrummie*..42 
Early Angus... -42 
? Hopetoun...41 
» Potato. ••••••• ....‘*-41£ 
Early Dyock....401 
Late Angus..40£ 
Black Tartarian.39 
The useful part of the oat being the kernel, and it 
being probable that the proportion of the weight of 
the husk to that of the kernel might vary so much as 
to render the weight per bushel a deception, 100 parts 
by weight of each sort were taken, and the husk anti 
kernel carefully separated. The following table 
shows the result: 
In 100 parts by weight. 
Husk. 
Kernel. 
Sandy Oat.. 
79 
Early Angus • • • • 
• • *21 
79 
Late ditto.. 
•••21| 
7S4 
Potato.. 
78 
Early Dyock.- 
75 
Black Tartarian* 
...25 
75 
Hopetoun. 
...26 
74 
Kildrummie • • • • 
• • -28 
72 
Siberian.. 
•••31 
69 
curious that the oat at 
the head of the first 
table should be at the bottom of the second. There 
may be as great difference among oats as among 
wheats in regard to their nutritive qnalities, and until 
this shall have been ascertained by the chemist, we 
shall not know the real comparative values. In the 
meantime, there need be no hesitation in preferring 
the sandy oat over all others, as it is very early and 
very productive in grain and straw,— Ibid. 
Horticultural Expedition to China .—Advices from Mr. 
Fortune, dated Shanghae, August 16, mention that he 
had returned from the river Min, and was busily en¬ 
gaged in gathering together his collections of plants 
left at Ningpo, Chusan, and other places, preparatory 
to his return to England, where he is expected in April 
or May next. His plants are described by him as be¬ 
ing extremely valuable; and he had decided upon 
bringing the whole of them home under his own su¬ 
perintendence. He had been in the black tea country, 
and had witnessed the process of preparing the leaves ; 
he had been seriously ill with lever, from which he 
was recovered ; and on his passage from the Min to 
Chusan, he had been twice attacked by pirates, who, 
however, were on each occasion driven off by himself, 
unassisted by his cowardly Chinese crew.— lb. 
How to Preserve Rhubarb .—My method is to take a 
quart bottle with a wide neck, and to cut the stalks 
small enough to go into the bottle ; I add brayed loaf 
sugar and tie a piece of bladder tight round the neck, 
I put as much water into the copper as will immerse 
the bottles, get the water to boil just over the bladder, 
then rake out the fire, and let the bottles remain in till 
cooled; I then take them out, place them on a dry 
shelf, and use the bottle at once.— lb. 
Soap as a Manure .—Having seen in some late num¬ 
ber of your excellent Paper some discussion on the 
value of soap as a manure, I am inclined to give you 
my experience in this matter. I am a silk dyer, and 
use about 15 cwt. of soap weekly to discharge the gum 
and oily matter from the silk before dyeing. I also use 
about 1 cwt. of soda to 3 cwt. of soap, which I pre¬ 
sume unites with the oily matter of the silk, forming 
a species of soap. The result is, that I produce from 
4000 to 6000 gallons of strong soap suds per week; and 
having a small farm, I have latterly applied the whole 
of this to my land, and its effect is most extraordinary. 
My experience in its use has been only one season, and 
I cannot, therefore, give any comparative results; but 
I consider it more powerful than any manure that I 
am acquainted with. If any of your readers will do 
me the honor to come and see my land next spring, 
when vegetation begins to move, they will have ample 
evidence of the value of soap as a manure ; and if far¬ 
mers were allowed the drawback of the dut) r on soap 
used as a manure, in the same way that we manufac- 
turers are allowed it by the government, there is no 
doubt in my mind that soap would soon supersede the 
use of guano.— Ag. Gaz. 
Large Cabbages .—Six cabbages of the flat-pole kind 
were recently raised by Mr. Toms, of Saltash, weigh¬ 
ing 61, 59, 57, 56 54, 50=337 lbs. 
