324 
editor’s table, 
(Otter’s (liable. 
Social Meeting of Farmers and Gardeners.— 
A meeting will be held at our rooms, 189 Water st., 
N. Y., on the first Monday of each month, from 12 till 
2 o’clock, P. M., for the benefit of Farmers, Gardeners, 
and others, disposed to come, for the purpose of hav¬ 
ing a social, informal chat, on subjects appertaining t ; 
Agriculture and Horticulture. 
These meetings are entirely free from charge of any 
kind whatever, to those who may please to attend 
them. They are subject to no formal speaking, but 
every person present is left to pass his time in the 
manner most agreeable to him, either in listening to 
what may be going on, or in conversing with any one 
present. 
A regular report of the proceedings will be pub¬ 
lished, once a month, in the American Agriculturist 
and other journals. 
We cordially invite our friends to attend, without 
ceremony, and exhibit whatever they may have par¬ 
ticularly curious, rare, or useful, in the way of plants, 
flowers, fruits, seeds, vegetables, farm or garden im¬ 
plements, fertilizers, &c. fyc. If not convenient to at¬ 
tend the meetings, as specified above, we should be 
pleased to receive whatever they may wish to have ex¬ 
hibited at any other time, with an account of the 
same in writing or otherwise, in order to embody it 
in the report. 
Fifth Annual Exhibition of the Essex County 
Institute, New Jersey. —This was held at the 
Court House, in Newark, on the 20th ult., and was 
highly creditable to the members and the public, from 
the large number of choice specimens of fruits and 
vegetables offered. The ladies’ department of fancy 
work was full and meritorious; but less so on the part 
of the mechanics and manufacturers, although there 
were several beautiful specimens of their work. But 
Newark is capable of exhibiting as large a variety of 
highly-finished, manufactured articles as any place of 
similar size in the country. 
The show of dairy products was inconsiderable, and 
that of animals limited, but among them, we noticed 
some in each department of peculiar excellence. 
The American Architect. —The September 
number of this work presents a specimen of a regular 
log cabin—no novelty, it is true, among us—but even 
log cabins ought to be built by rule, and for twenty- 
five cents any one can have designs in perspective and 
detail. The price of the 4 ‘ Architect” is $3 per an¬ 
num. C. M. Saxton, publisher, 205 Broadway. 
American Cottage Library; o^. Useful Facts, 
Figures, and Hints for Everybody, Containing a General 
View of the World, Statistics of the United States, fyc. 
&c. Burgess, Stringer, & Co., 222 Broadway, pp. 190. 
Price 25 cents. This is a very useful book as a refer¬ 
ence, and as such we recommend it to our readers. 
Cottages and Cottage Life ; Containing plans 
for Country Houses, Adapted to the Means and Wants 
of the People of the United States, with Directions 
for Building and Improving ; for the Laying out and 
Embellishing of Grounds; with Some Sketches of 
Life in this Country. By C. W. Elliott. Cincinnati: 
H. W. Derby & Co., publishers. New York, A. S. 
Barnes & Co., pp. 226. In this work, the author has 
given sixteen fine lithographs of cottages, in various 
styles of architecture, plans for gardens, and laying out 
grounds, with architectural embellishments for the 
same. The designs, in general, are pretty and conve¬ 
nient, and do credit to his taste as ah artist. These are 
accompanied with letter-press descriptions, and the 
whole is interwoven with a tale, or more properly a se¬ 
ries of sketches of life in the country, told partly in 
prose and partly in poetry. This work is handsomely 
got up, and does much credit to the publishers ; in¬ 
deed, it is the finest specimen of typography we 
have yet seen emanating from the west. Mr. Elliott 
is a pleasing and instructive writer, and we hail his 
beautiful volume as another evidence of growing taste 
and refinement amongst us. 
Great Corn Field, and Great Country .—A 
traveller writes to the Toledo Blade, from the Wabash 
Valley: I viewed the 1,000 acre field of corn (on 
Wea Prairie), of the Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, late Com¬ 
missioner of Patents, where this year 60,000 bushels 
will probably be raised without hoeing, simply plow¬ 
ing the corn two or three times. I may say, too, that 
1 saw 5,000 acres, all adjoining.” 
Corn is raised by contract, for 4 to 6 cents per bush¬ 
el, taken in the field. Hogs are raised on clover, oats, 
and corn, and it is not unfrequent to find farms with 
1,500 of these grunters. On the Grand Prairie, no less 
than 10,000 cattle, from one to four years old, were feed¬ 
ing in different herds, for the eastern market—one 
herdsman taking care of two to four hundred, for a 
compensation of ten cents per head, per month. 
Multicole Rye. —G. T. Hopkins, Esq., editor of 
the Vermont State Agriculturist, in giving the result 
of an experiment made by him with multicole rye,, 
says that “ it stools out more profusely than any other 
grain we have ever met with. From 10 to 20 stalks 
grew from every seed that vegetated, and one root, in 
particular, numbered 31 stalks, each with a good head 
on it, the aggregate length of which was 14 feet 3 
inches, and the number of grains 2,128. The heads of 
the entire crop averaged about 6 inches in length.” 
Science of Cooking. —Liebig’s “ Chemistry of 
Food” details a method for cooking meat, founded on 
scientific principles. It is recommended to introduce 
the joint into water in a state of quick ebullition, 
allow' it to remain in this state for a few minutes, and 
then so much cold water is to be added as to reduce 
the temperature down to about 160°, in which 
state it is to be kept for some hours. By the appli¬ 
cation of boiling water at the first, the albumen is 
coagulated, so as to prevent the water from penetra¬ 
ting into the interior of the joint, and extracting the 
soluble juices. 
Chicken with a Human Face. —We have heard, 
says the New Orleans Delta, a good deal of talk during 
the last few days about a chicken with a human face, 
at the house of Madame Martin, in Cole street, near St. 
Philip. We paid no attention to the droll stories 
which we heard, but at length we were so pressed 
that we determined to see for ourselves. At the place 
mentioned, we saw a chicken, having, instead of a beak, 
a nose and mouth exactly conformable to those of a 
human face ; the nostrils, the separating cartilage, the 
lips, tongue, chin, are all there. It was indeed a most 
singular lusus natures. 
A Preventive of the Hessian Fly.— Jonah 
Oglesby, a respectable farmer of Dauphin county, pub¬ 
lishes a statement in the Pennsylvania Cultivator, by 
which it appears, that to burn the stubble of the pre¬ 
vious crop is a certain preventive against the fly. He 
has practised this for nine years, without a failure in 
a single instance. 
Economy in Raising Poultry. —Cobbet, in his 
“ Cottage Economy,” says that six fowls, with proper 
care, might be made to clear, every week, the price 
of one gallon of flour. 
Prairie Steam Car.— The experiments with the 
prairie steam car, invented by Gen. Semple, of Illi¬ 
nois, appears to have succee ed. The Springfield 
Register, of the 28th, says it has run ten miles an 
hour over the prairie, with fifty passe ngers. A daily 
train between Springfield and Alton is contemplated 
