AMERICANfJAGRICULTURIST. 
Genesee, 87.00; Bruce Mills, Mich., 86.80; 
Pure Genesee,86.65; Zanesville Mills, Ohio, 
86.15._ 
Agricultural Patents. —The following 
number of Patents were issuer! in the United 
States prior to the year 1855. For Thresh¬ 
ing Machines, 378; for Plows, 372; for 
Winnowing Machines, 163; for Straw Cutters, 
153 ; for Smut Machines, 140 ; for Grain and 
Grass Harvesters, 110 ; Total for these six 
kinds of implements, 1,317 ; of which a large 
proportion have been obtained within a few 
years past. 
SWAMP OK MUCK ASHES. 
Answer to Inquiries. 
A subscriber in Connecticut writes : “ I 
have on a piece of swamp land which I have 
under improvement (or in process of it), 
some twenty or thirty acres, from which 1 
have to take or pare some six inches or 
more of roots, leaves, &c. This is simply 
an excess of vegetable matter, and when 
burned it gives me from two to three thou¬ 
sand bushels of ashes per acre. Please in¬ 
form me if I can find sale for these in New- 
York ; and, if so, at what price, and through 
what channel.” 
Remarks. —In reply to the above, and other 
similar inquiries, we do not know of anyone 
who would purchase ashes of such a char¬ 
acter. They are of necessity mingled with 
considerable quantities of soil, and are of very 
variable quality. The most economical mode 
of disposing of them would be to leach them 
at the nearest practicable point to the place of 
production, if they can not be sold for ap¬ 
plication to land inthe vicinity. If there are 
intelligent neighboring farmers, they will 
pay more for such ashes than any distant 
dealer, or leacher could possibly afford to 
give. 
But we should be far from advising to burn 
such peaty soils. The ashes have not a 
tithe of the value possessed by the unburned 
material ; such vegetable matters are just 
what is most needed by nine-tenths of the 
soils of Connecticut, and other long-cultured 
regions. Let them be composted with lime, 
or unleached ashes, or with barnyard ma¬ 
nures, and then applied to soils deficient in 
organic or vegetable matter. 
If there are roots and bushes too coarse 
for this purpose, let the coarser materials be 
gathered and burned, and the ashes from 
these composted with the finer portions will 
produce a most excellent manure. 
Carrots for Poultry.—W. C., in the Ru¬ 
ral New-Yorker, strongly recommends feed¬ 
ing carrots to poultry. He says he practices 
this daily, and believes that any one who 
tries it will not readily discontinue the prac¬ 
tice. He chops them finely with a common 
sausage meat cutter, and mixes them with 
meal, scraps, &c., and thinks they are the 
most profitable food that can be used for 
fowls. 
Honesty is silently commended even by the 
practice of the most wicked ; for their deceit 
s under its color. 
TAPER'S HORSE POWER. 
Above we present a cut of a horse power 
that has been in use for a number of years, 
and which, after this long trial, proves to be 
one of the best, notwithstanding the preten- 
ious claims of more complicated powers of 
recent origin. Its construction is readily 
seen from the illustration, where it is shown 
attached to a portable grist mill. It consists 
essentially of a wooden rim, twenty to twen¬ 
ty five feet in diameter, with wrought iron 
cogs upon the lower side, which work into 
a pinion placed upon the end of the shaft of 
the band-wheel. The motion may be com¬ 
municated to other machinery, either by a 
band, rope or chain, or by shafts or rods. 
The cogs are upon, or rather a part of, iron 
plates, and bolted on in segments or separate 
pieces, fitting well together to form a con¬ 
tinuous circle. The horses walk around in 
the circle, where they are readily admitted 
by a simple unhooking arrangement which 
opens the side of the rim, after the manner 
of a gate. 
There are two prominent and important 
advantages possessed by this power : First, 
its great simplicity, which makes it far less 
liable to get out of repair ; and second, a 
saving of much of the power lost by friction 
in the ordinary complicated wheel gearings. 
It is put together in parts, so as to be readily 
put up or taken down for transportation or 
storage. 
The larger circles are preferable to those 
of smaller size, as they give a larger crib for 
the horse to walk in, and the power is more 
at right angles to the pinion. 
A distinguished planter from South Caro¬ 
lina, wrote us last month : “ I introduced the 
Taplin horse powers here, and no one who 
has seen them has purchased any other kind 
since. They are the only kind we can use 
on our plantations ; and if the cotton planters 
knew them, not one would ever buy any oth¬ 
er kind. This power is in fact nothing but 
the running gear of our cotton gins ; ren¬ 
dered moveable. The two powers are iden¬ 
tical and we all know how to use them. In 
fact I would not accept as a present any 
other horse power now in use.” 
Some Corn. —At the recent exhibition of 
the U. S. Agricultural Society at Boston, 
Hon. Edward Everett exhibited, during bis 
address, a large ear of coi n, which had been 
presented to him, containing 720 kernels. 
We have before us an ear raised by Mr. F. R. 
Rives, of Albemarle, Virginia, which goes 
ahead of that shown by Mr. Everett. This ear 
is 13 inches long, 8 inches in circumference 
nearly the whole length, and contains 863 
plump kernels. It is the common white 
Virginia corn, was raised, without manure, 
upon clover sod plowed under during the 
previous winter. There are more of a 
similar sort in the field where this grew. 
TOBACCO ANAIYSIS. 
The following analyses of the ashes of the 
leaf and stalk of tobacro were made in the 
Laboratory of Prof. Chas. B. Stuart, of Ran¬ 
dolph, Macon College, by Mr. W. A. Shepard. 
We are personally acquainted with both of 
these gentlemen, having passed some time 
with them in the Yale College Analytical 
Laboratory, and from what we know of their 
carefulness and skill, we attach considerable 
value to the analyses as here given. The 
dried tobacco leaf and the stalk were care¬ 
fully burned. One hundred parts of the dried 
leaf yielded about 18^ (18.47) parts of ashes 
which is a very large proportion, when we 
remember that most kinds of wood and other 
vegetable substances give but two or three 
per cent of ash. 100 parts of the ashes 
experimented upon gave as follows : 
Leaf. Stalk. 
Sulphuric acid. 2.95 4.12 
Chlorine. 5.93 14.42 
Phosphoric acid. 0.08 6.70 
Lime.35.S3 26.34 
Potash.30.46 35.32 
Soda. 2 95 1.14 
Magnesia.. 6 96 8.30 
Soluble silicas. 1.59 17 
Charcoal and sand... 6.95 3 88 
Iron, merely.a trace, a trace. 
99.70 100 39 
The absence of iron is somewhat remark¬ 
able, as there is usually considerable quan¬ 
tities of this substance found in the ashes of 
most plants. We see that full two-thirds 
of the ash is potash and lime. Every 100 lbs. 
of dry tobacco would, according to this anal¬ 
ysis, have taken from the soil about 6 lbs. 
each of potash and lime. 
The specimens used were of the variety 
known as the “ Orinico,” raised in southern 
Virginia. 
Air Necessary for Decomposition. —The 
presence of atmospheric or oxygen appears 
essential to the first development, if not to 
the continuance of nearly all of decomposi¬ 
tion. Meat, vegetables, and indeed most or¬ 
ganic substances can be kept from the at¬ 
mosphere for years. Eggs lose their prop¬ 
erty of absorbing oxygen by immersion in 
milk of lime; the small amount of carbonic 
acid contained within the shell uniting with 
the solution of lime that penetrates into the 
pores of the shell, and forming an insoluble 
carbonate, shutting up all the apertures by 
