AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
163 
of the oxy-sulphuret of calcium, generally 
supposed to be utterly useless, has been 
proved, by M. Chevandier’s experiments, to 
be the most wonderful substance ever em¬ 
ployed for fertilizing purposes. It augments 
the growth of forests over one hundred per 
cent. Jn the neighborhood of soda-works, 
there are huge piles of it, the accumulation 
of years. At Marseilles it is thrown into the 
sea, while there are, throughout the depart¬ 
ment, vast pine plantations upon which it 
might be applied with great advantage. 
Home Journal. 
THE BEST METHOD OF STORING AND PRE¬ 
SERVING POTATOES DURING THE WINTER. 
At the Whitby Farmers’ Club, Charles 
Hudson, Esq., in the Chair, the following 
most valuable remarks were made in the 
course of a short discussion on the above 
subject: 
W. Frankland, Esq., said he considered 
that very much depends on the state the po¬ 
tatoes are in when taken up. As regards 
his own, this year, they had been partially 
attacked with the disease, and he thought at 
one time they were going to be very bad ; 
but they have turned out much better than he 
expected. Those diseased he sorts out as 
he takes them up. He then thinly spreads 
the good in his out-houses, when they are 
taken up wet; but this year they are so dry 
and clear that he has laid them much thick¬ 
er. He lets them lie ten days or a fortnight 
to sweat, and then sorts them into three sorts, 
marketable, for sets, and the bad and small 
for pigs, &c. In about another fortnight he 
stores them in pies in the field, as by keeping 
in the house all the winter they are apt to 
shrivel, and do not look so blooming in the 
. spring. 
Mr. Geo. Welburn, of Fylingdales, said 
that he sorts his in the same way as Mr. 
Frankland, and spreads them accordingly; 
he has an out-house on porpose for storing 
them for the winter, and therefore never 
makes pies in the field. As soon as he thinks 
they are fit to put by, he stores them in his 
potato-house, and covers them with straw 
and dry sods. He takes particular care of 
his sods from year to year, always preserv¬ 
ing them from wet. By these means, living 
as he does near the fishing town of Robin 
Hood’s Bay, which he supplies all the win¬ 
ter, he can .get easily at them at all times, 
whether frost or snow, which he could not 
were they in pies in the fields. 
Mr. T. Ward, of Bannial Flat, said he does 
the same as Mr. Frankland as far as he has 
room in his out-houses ; but as he grows a 
large quantity he can not take, perhaps, such 
minute pains and care of them. He causes 
them all to be sorted as they take them up, 
and leaves all the diseased and bad ones on 
the land, and then turns his pigs in to con¬ 
sume them. He first puts the good in small 
heaps in a field, and covers them with straw, 
and lets them lie in this way about a fortnight 
to sweat; he then has them properly sorted, 
and stores them in pies in the fields for the 
winter. He thinks Mr. Welburn’s plan a 
good one, where there is a proper storing 
house. 
Mr. E. Ormeston, of Struggleton, said that 
he puts all his potatoes in the house the same 
as Mr. Welburn. He is very particular in 
sorting them, as he believes that the diseased 
potatoes infect the good ; but in a few weeks 
after they have been takten up and sweated, 
they may then be stored for the winter, he 
having houses for the purpose. 
All the other members present concurred 
in the opinion that potatoes must be allowed 
time to sweat before they are stored away 
for the winter, and the diseased regularly 
sorted from the good, as there is no doubt of 
the disease being contagious. 
Mark Lane Express. 
RAILWAYS AND AGRICULTURE- 
We have received a well printed pamphlet 
of forty pages, containing the address of 
Hon. Kenneth Rayner, before the North 
Carolina Agricultural Society, at the recent 
annual show. From many interesting pas¬ 
sages we select the following : 
One of the most striking manifestations of 
the industrial enterprize of the age is the 
struggle man is now engaged in, with the ob¬ 
stacles presented by nature—in opening 
channels of communication, in laying down 
the pathways of trade and commerce, in pi¬ 
oneering the way for the iron rail and 
steam-engine. The vast stores of the Incas 
of Peru dwindled into insignificance com¬ 
pared with the hundred of millions that have 
been expended in these monuments of human 
industry in the United States, in England, in 
France; and their march is onward toward 
the steppes of Asia. In their construction 
man has achieved victories over the ele¬ 
ments, of which Archimide's never drearapt. 
It was the boast of Napoleon, that while Han¬ 
nibal had scaled the Alps, he had turned them 
—but the engineer has done more than either 
of these great conquerors ; he has tunneled 
them—not for the march of desolating 
armies, but for the transit of the products of 
the pursuits of peace—for the conveyance of 
the traveler in comfort and safety, beneath 
the roaring avalanche above his head. And 
what are railroads, but the veins and arteries 
through which the products of agriculture, 
either in their crude state or as fashioned in 
the workshop, circulate, in seeking the mar¬ 
kets of commerce. While railroads are 
dependent upon the products of agriculture, 
yet the two are inseparably identified in in¬ 
terest. They act and react on each other. 
It is upon Che productions of the field and 
the workshop the railroad must rely for the 
materials of freight, the very means of sub¬ 
sistence. But then again, the construction of 
the railroad, by the benefits conferred, in 
contiguity to market, chapening the cost of 
transportation, increased convenience in 
procuring the comforts and luxuries of life, 
affords a stimulus to the land-owner to im¬ 
prove his land to the highest capability of 
production ; and as the products of the land 
are increased, the railroad finds increased 
employment, and enhanced profits. This is 
no mere theory. Experience has every 
where proven it to be true. It is a mistake 
then to suppose—a mistake in which the 
farmers of South Carolina indulged in for 
many years, to an almost fatal extent—that 
it is the speculator and the capitalist, who 
are principally interested in the construction 
of railroads and the advancement of inter¬ 
nal improvement. Until within a very few 
years, the farmers of this State supposed, 
and demagogues fsund it to their interest 
to foster the delusion, that the only interest 
the farmer had in works of internal improve¬ 
ment, was the interest on the State debt 
caused by their construction. But the dif¬ 
fusion of intelligence, and the teachings of 
experience, have proven that productive la¬ 
bor, after supplying the producer’s immedi¬ 
ate wants, are valueless without markets in 
which to sell; and that markets are value¬ 
less without the means of reaching them. 
Ip any young man wants to reach the “high 
top gallant mast of felicity,” let him make a 
journey through Maine, sitting on the back 
seat of a stage coach between two down east 
girls, with only one piece of spruce gum for 
the three to. chew. The editor of the Boston 
Herald has tried it. 
DISEASE S OF FOWLS. 
A CHAPTER ON ROUP. 
I think it due, not only to the author of a 
paper which appeared in your Chronicle 
some time ago, on “ The American cure for 
roup,” but also to poultry fanciers in general, 
that I should inform you of the result of 
several experiments I have made lately in 
the treatment of that infectious and hitherto 
fatal malady. 
In the early part of last spring, roup ap¬ 
peared in my yard, attacking first my game 
fowls, (which inhabit a building at some dis¬ 
tance from the other poultry,) and soon run¬ 
ning through the whole flock, which have 
continued to manifest more or less of its 
symptoms ever since. 
In their treatment, I gave a very fair trial 
to every remedy that has, as far as I know, 
been yet suggested—from the old “ cock- 
feeders’” mixture of rue, garlick, and but¬ 
ter, to calomel, blue pill, jalap, pepper, &c., 
&t\, with various other compounds of my 
own suggestion, both for external and inter¬ 
nal application. These several modes of 
treatment, many of them based on scientific 
principles, appeared, however, of little use in 
stopping short the disease, although I ulti¬ 
mately lost but one bird ; and I was begin¬ 
ning to think that this malady was one which 
would run a certain course, in spite of every 
precaution and remedy. When I first read 
the article I have already alluded to, in the 
Poultry Chronicle, I tried the simple remedy 
there suggested, viz : a saturated solution of 
alum, a dessert-spoonful ofwhich I gave, in¬ 
ternally, twice a day, injecting about a tea¬ 
spoonful into the nostrils each time by a 
glass syringe. 
In every instance, thus far, it has never 
failed to effect a cure in from twenty-four 
hours to three days, according to the stage 
of the disorder, and the symptoms mani¬ 
fested. 
I have given it to birds so swollen in the 
face, that they could hardly see ; to others 
rattling in the throat; to some with the clear, 
watery discharge from the nostrils; to others 
with the purulent discharge of a more ad¬ 
vanced stage, and that with the most signal 
success in every instance. 
Yet, I do not wish to infer that this pre¬ 
paration must necessarily be efficacious in 
every instance ; nay, I still think that if al¬ 
lowed to run on too long, and prey too far 
upon the constitution, roup will be found 
very difficult to cure. 
I must acknowledge at the same time that, 
in my opinion, this remedy is far more cer¬ 
tain if applied in the earlier stages, when its 
astringent effect upon the inflamed mucous 
membrane lining the cavities of the nose 
and fauces, are most important, and benefi¬ 
cial. 
T fear that I have already trespassed too 
far upon your time and patience, yet, if they 
can be of any service to you, permit me to 
add a few remarks upon roup in general, 
some of which may be new, and some merely 
backing out the theories and suggestions of 
others. 
How seldom we see roup manifested in the 
farm-yard, where the poultry are too often 
little cared for, and are permitted to roost in 
any out-house, no matter how much exposed 
and filthy. Yet, how is it that we find fowls, 
perhaps of the same breed, indulged in every 
way, both as to diet and housing, suffering 
so severely from this disorder? Is not this, 
to a certain extent, the very reason? 
The birds are brought to an artificial state 
of growth and system by high feeding. They 
are secured for the night in a building at all 
times rendered close by their own breath, 
and the exhalations of their own bodies, and 
in addition to this, sometimes warmed by 
pipes of hot water, or a gas apparatus. 
