298 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
tion of marl beds, lime strata, &c. Lieut. 
Viele, who is also engaged in the Topograph¬ 
ical department of the same survey, was 
expected to speak upon the occasion, but 
owing to the detention of the cars he arrived 
too late to participate in the discussions. 
We spent some hours in conversation with 
these gentlemen, and warmly recommend 
their enterprise to the attention and efficient 
support of tho State Legislature now in ses¬ 
sion. Every dollar appropriated to this sur¬ 
vey will be returned a hundred fold by de¬ 
veloping the agricultural and mineral re¬ 
sources of the State. 
CONNECTICUT STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The annual meeting of this society was 
held in Hartford on the 3d instant. The 
Treasurer’s report showed a most flourish¬ 
ing state of things in this important depart¬ 
ment, one which must be particularly grati¬ 
fying to the active officers, who have labored 
so energetically and faithfully to get the 
society under successful headway. The re¬ 
ceipts for the past year have been $12,743 
20 ; the expenditures $7,504 77. Of the 
balance, $4,900 is put on interest, and $338 
43 reserved for contingencies. 
We are glad to recognize among the re¬ 
elected officers the Corresponding Secretary, 
Henry A. Dyer, Esq., who has contributed 
more than any other to place the society in 
its present flourishing condition. 
The next exhibition is to be held at Hart¬ 
ford. The following officers are chosen for 
the present year : 
President—Sam'l H. Huntington, of Hart¬ 
ford. 
Vice Presidents—Charles H. Pond, of Mil¬ 
ford, and Nathaniel B. Smith, of Woodbury. 
Corresponding Secretary—Henry A. Dyer, 
of Brooklyn. 
Recording Secretary—John A. Porter, of 
New-Haven. 
Treasurer—John A. Porter, of N. Haven. 
COUNTY DIRECTORS. 
Hartford County—Frederick H. North, of 
Berlin. 
New-Haven County—Elias B. Bishop, of 
North-Haven. 
Fairfield County—Eliakim Hough, of East 
Bridgeport. 
Litchfield County—Theodore J. Gold, of 
Cornwall. 
New-London County—Erastus Williams, 
of Norwich. 
Middlesex County—Brainerd Montague, of 
Middletown. 
Windham County—Henry Hammond, of 
Killingly. 
Tolland County—R. B. Chamberlin, of 
Coventry. 
The Mississippi Spanned.— The Mineapo- 
lis suspension bridge across the Mississippi 
river, above the falls of St. Anthony, has at 
length been completed, and the waters of the 
mighty river are spanned for the first time by 
a structure of iron and wood. The last floor 
beam of the bridge was laid upon the 5th ult., 
and the occasion was one of pride and re¬ 
joicing to the inhabitants on the different 
banks of the stream. The dimensions of the 
bridge are as follows : The length of span 
is 620 feet; vertical deflection of cables, 47 
feet, which are four in number, and each 
composed of 500 strands of No. 10 charcoal- 
iron wire. The width of the platform, inside 
of parapets, is 17 feet; distance between 
suspending rods, 3 feet 9 inches. 
Scientific American. 
FLOUR ARITHMETIC. 
It is estimated that in London there was 
consumed last year 827,527,000—eight hun¬ 
dred and twenty-seven millions, five hundred 
and twenty-seven thousand pounds of flour. 
We will give a calculation or two and let the 
boy readers of the American Agriculturist 
carry on the figures. It will exercise them 
in arithmetic. A barrel holds 196 pounds of 
flour. This flour would fill 4,222,076 barrels 
—more than four millions. Put these barrels 
on carts—eight barrels to a cart—and there 
would be 527,759 cart loads. Allow these 
carts with the horses to occupy 25 feet each, 
and they would form a row of teams reach¬ 
ing 2,500 miles, or farther than from New- 
York to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. 
A long row of teams that. If the barrels 
were set side by side, each barrel occupying 
three feet, the row would extend two thou¬ 
sand four hundred miles ! or from New-York 
almost to California ; or they would nearly 
form two rows reaching from New-York to 
New-Orleans. 
One pound of flour makes one and a half 
pounds of bread, and, as in 1850, the popula¬ 
tion of this country was 23,191,876, the flour 
consumed in one year in London would make 
about 54 pounds of bread, or six very large 
loaves for every man, woman and child in the 
United States. 
The population of the world is estimated 
at one billion. The flour consumed in Lon¬ 
don in one year would give nearly one and a 
quarter pounds of bread to every human 
being on the globe. See if these figures are 
correct. 
UNITED STATES AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The Third Annual Meeting of the United 
States Agricultural Society will be held at 
Washington, D. C., on Wednesday, Februa¬ 
ry 28, 1855. Business of importance will 
come before the meeting. A new election 
of Officers is to be made, in which it is desir¬ 
able that every State and Territory should be 
represented. Lectures and interesting Dis¬ 
cussions are expected on subjects pertain¬ 
ing to the objects of the Association, by 
distinguished scientific and practical agri¬ 
culturists. 
The various Agricultural Societies of the 
country are respectfully requested to send 
delegates to this meeting; and all gentle¬ 
men who are interested in the welfare of 
American agriculture, who would promote 
a more cordial spirit of intercourse between 
the different sections of our land, and who 
would elevate this most important pursuit to 
a position of greater usefulness and honor, 
are also invited to be present on this occa- 
uion. MARSHALL P. WILDER, Pres. 
W. S. King, Secretary. 
Virtuous persons are by all good men open¬ 
ly reverenced, and even silently by the bad, 
so much do the beams of virtue dazzle even 
unwilling eyes. 
PAPER MAKING IN CALIFORNIA. 
With a desire to aid in the advancement 
of home manufactures, we publish the fol¬ 
lowing article on the subject of manufactur¬ 
ing paper in California. It is furnished by 
Mr. D. P. Tallmadge, to the Empire County 
Argus, and we learn that the writer was for 
a long Jtime an extensive manufacturer of 
paper in New-York : He says : 
“ The tule of this State is supposed to re¬ 
semble the Papyrus, from which it is said 
paper was originally made, and that, there¬ 
fore, our two million acres of tule lands will 
furnish an excellent stock of raw material 
for paper. There may be a resemblance, and 
indeed the tule may be as good, and must be 
twenty per cent better than the papyrus it¬ 
self, in order to furnish a profitable material 
for the manufacture of white paper. No 
papyrus ever grew equal to linen or cotton 
rags for the production of paper, such as is 
now required in market. If the reading 
world would be satisfied with newspapers 
and books printed on paper of a yellowish 
or grayish color, instead of pure white, pa¬ 
per could be produced at much cheaper rates 
than at present. The difficulty is not in 
making paper out of straw, or'tule, but in 
bringing the paper to the required standard 
of whiteness. The cost of bleaching these 
articles is fearful in the eyes of a manufac¬ 
turer, when compared with the cost of 
whitening domestic rags, or cordage, by any 
process now generally understood by paper 
makers. 
“ We have in our time tried many experi¬ 
ments in making paper from straw and other 
material, and never yet found anything equal 
to a linen rag. We have examined the tule, 
and believe that an article of paper can be 
made from it equal if not superior to straw 
paper, and combined with linen and cotton, 
the tule may form a valuable ingredient; 
but the manufacturer of paper encounters 
many difficulties in producing a good quality 
of paper from the stock now generally used, 
and these difficulties are greatly increased 
when resortjis made to other vegetable fiber. 
“ Of the manufacture of paper in this State 
we have to say, that if a suitable location 
near San Francisco, could be found, the busi¬ 
ness might be made profitable. Perfectly 
clear water is absolutely necessary. We 
hope to see the experiment made on a larger 
scale, a one-horse power concern will never 
succeed. The market here is ample for 
several large mills, and coarse paper can be 
manufactured profitably beyond a doubt; and 
if the tule will make a good and white paper, 
we can from this source supply the world.” 
California Farmer 
Unhealthy Plastering. —A communica¬ 
tion in the New-York Journal of Commerce 
asserts that the hair used in plaster for new 
houses is, very frequently, so dirty as to 
emit unpleasant effluvia, which is quite sick¬ 
ening, and calculated to keep a room un¬ 
healthy for years afterwards. The writer 
says : 
“ Hair used for mixing in mortar should 
be thoroughly [washed—re-washed, and dried, 
and thus deprived of the putrid matter that 
often adheres to it. The lime in mortar is 
not sufficient to cleanse the hair. It will 
generate an unpleasant sickly effluvia when¬ 
ever the room is heated, until, after a long 
time, the mortar is converted into nitrate of 
lime, or so much of it as is mixed with the 
animal matter, incorporated in the mortar.” 
Death of Mr. Sigourney. —Mr. Charles 
Sigourney, the husband of Mrs. Sigourney, 
the poetess, and an old and highly respected 
merchant of Hartford, died in that city on 
Saturday afternoon, very suddenly, of apo¬ 
plexy. 
