1852. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
855 
urns offered only seventy-eight pounds. The present 
year there were exhibited 1,346 animals, and about 
$4,500 were paid in premiums. The Prize Essays and 
Transactions of this society possess great value, and Dr. 
Anderson and Prof. Johnston, both of whom have been 
connected with the Society, have contributed very much 
to the progress of Scientific Agriculture. 
A Draining Plow.-— The Mark Lane Express con¬ 
tains an advertisement and full description of a plow for 
sinking drains. The work is all done under ground—the 
ditch excavated and tiles laid invisibly, under your feet. 
The machine is quite complicated and expensive, but the 
owners advertise to lay drains better than can be done by 
hand, at one-third less expense. Could some such ma¬ 
chine be introduced into this country, it would turn the 
attention of farmers to the much neglected, but very im¬ 
portant business of draining their land. 
A Substitute for Guano.— The Royal Agricultural 
Society of England offer a prize of £1,000, and the gold 
medal of the Society, for the discovery of a manure 
equal in fertilizing properties to the Peruvian Guano, 
and of which an unlimited supply can be furnished to the 
English farmer at a rate not exceeding £5 per ton. 
Rfd Ants.—A correspondent wishes to know if any 
of our readers can tell him how to expel or destroy the 
small red ants. He can neither drown or scald them out. 
Albany and Rensselaer IIort. Society. —The au¬ 
tumnal exhibition of the Albany and Rensselaer Horti¬ 
cultural Society took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, 
the 13th and 14th ult. The display of fruits, flowers and 
vegetables exceeded that of any former exhibition. The 
Society met at 12 m. on Tuesday, its President, Dr. 
Herman Wendell, in the Chair, who in an appropriate 
and feeling manner, called the attention of its members 
to the death of the late A. J. Downing, editor of the 
Horticulturist, and offered the following resolutions which 
were unanimously adopted— 
Resolved, That the members of the Albany and Rens¬ 
selaer Horticultural Society, in common with others of 
the Pomological, Horticultural and Agricultural portions 
of our citizens, mourn sincerely the death of the late A. 
J. Downing, who has been more instrumental, than any 
other individual, in extending a taste for, and promoting 
the love of, all the branches of an art which conduces so 
much to the Comfort and the pleasure of the community. 
Resolved, That a copy of these'resolutions, properly 
attested, be forwarded to the family of the late Mr. Down¬ 
ing, and that they be embodied in and published with 
the records of this Society. 
The following gentlemen were chosen delegates to re¬ 
present the Society at the Fair of the American Insti¬ 
tute, to be held in New-York, in October:— 
Joel Ratbbone, V. P. Douw, Herman Wendell, B. P. 
Johnson, J. McD. McIntyre, B. B. Kirtland, Wm. New- 
combe, Erastus Corning, jr., Jefferson May ell, James 
Wilson, W. A. Wharton, E. M. Van Alstyne, E. E. 
Platt and Elisha Dorr. 
On motion of Mr. Mayell, it was resolved, that the 
President communicate to H. T. E. Foster, Esq., of Lake- 
land farm, Seneca co.; to Messrs. Ellwanger and Barry, 
of the Mount Hope nurseries, Rochester; to J. J. Thom¬ 
as, Esq., of Macedon, Wayne co ; to John Morse,Esq., 
of Cayuga Bridge, and to H. K. Hart, of Whitestown, 
Oneida co., the thanks of the Soeiety for the rich and 
valuable displays of fruit made by them respectively. 
Old Tan a Remedy for the Potato Disease. —Ow¬ 
ing to the prevalence of disease, I am again induced to 
recommend planting in old tan, which has proved the 
best and only remedy I have yet met with; and as a 
proof of my success, I grew nearly 60 bushels on this 
principle, and scarcely a bad potato was to be found, al 
though planted on heavy clay soil. They were the ad¬ 
miration of all who saw them; while others planted in 
the same garden without tan were entirely destroyed. 
As a further proof of the excellence of this remedy, 
I was resolved last year, by way of experiment, to 
try them on the same ground without tan, and the 
result was that nearly half were bad. I write this 
after three years’ experience, which has proved most 
satisfactory. I usually had the ground thrown up 
in ridges about November, and I allowed it to remain in 
that condition until the first week in February, when the 
sides were chopped slightly down, and about three inches 
of old tan put in between the rows; the sets were plant¬ 
ed whole, and covered with tan and a portion of soil. 
There is likewise another advantage, viz: when the pota¬ 
toes are dug, they leave the ground so clean that they 
require no rubbing, which assists their keeping— E . 
Bennett in London Mark Lane Express. 
Here is another proof of the virtues of tannic acid, 
which have been so harped upon. As a mulch in heavy 
soils and as a means of retaining moisture, and a cover¬ 
ing for tender plants in winter, tanivill no doubt be found 
useful. The effect produced above is unquestionably 
owing to the soil being kept light and freely permeable to 
the atmosphere, rather than any constituent of the tan 
itself. - 
Effects of Drainage on the temperature of the 
Soil.— All the rain that falls upon our fields must either 
be carried away by natural or artificial drainage, or, 
having thoroughly saturated the soil on which it falls, be 
left upon the surface to be carried off by evaporation. 
Now, every gallon of water thus carried off by evapora¬ 
tion, requires as much heat as would raise five and a half 
gallons from the freezing fb the boiling point! Without 
going to extreme cases, the great effects of the heat thus 
lost upon vegetation cannot fail to be striking, and I have 
frequently found the soil of a field well drained, higher 
in temperature from 10° to 15° than that of another field 
which had not been drained, though in every other re¬ 
spect the soils were similar. I have observed the effects 
of this on the growing crops, and I have seen not only a 
much inferior crop on the undrained field, but that crop 
harvested fully three weeks after the other, and owing to 
this circumstance and the setting in of unsettled weather, 
I have seen that crop deteriorated fully ten per cent in 
value. B. Simpson , in Journal of Royal Jig. Society. 
A Card from Mr. McCormick. 
Mr. Editor —I beg leave to say through the forthcoming No. of 
the “Cultivator,” that it may appear with your notice of the awards 
of the Committee of the State Agricultural Society, made at the Ge¬ 
neva trial of Reapers and Mowers—that in the detailed report of facts 
made by said committee, together with some other facts known to 
them—but especially in connection with certain other facts, perhaps 
not within their knowledge—the superiority of my machine over all 
others included in said trial, was abundantly proved —the awards of 
the committee to the contrary notwithstanding. When T say this, I 
mean not to impugn motives. I was not present either at the Geneva 
trial, or the Utica Fair, and the public are only concerned to know 
facts and results. Such only I propose to present, and such I ask 
them to consider; and, accordingly, I only request them to suspend 
any judgment in the premises until I have seen and commented upon 
the report and awards together, which I consider calculated to do the 
grossest injustice to myself and the public. 
I will only at present add, that when it was made known to tho 
