378 
STATE AGBICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 
which are not destroyed by decomposition of the salt containing tnem, is, at 
the best, of doubtful propriety. Hand-picking has given us the most satis¬ 
factory results. The cost of this method of destroying the beetles has beeu 
$1.26 per acre for each time of picking. 
The number of times it will be found necessary to pick the beetles, will de¬ 
pend upon the warmth and wetness of the season, as they multiply more 
rapidly in dry, hot weather. Last year five times was not too many. This 
year three times has been sufficieni. 
Excelsior Oats. —Seed from department of agriculture. 16^ quarts 
weighed 25f lbs. Sowed upon one-fourth of an acre. May 18th, soil rich clay 
loam, with clay sub-soil. Growth very rank. Began lodging before heading 
out. When harvested were tbree-fourths laid Crop harvested August 11th 
and threshed August 19th, yielding 9 bushels. One bushel weighed 27 lbs. 
The straw was badly affected with rust and mildew. 
The land upon which these oats were sown would, in ordinary seasons, 
have been the best we have in cultivation, but the unusual amount of rain 
this season had an injurious effect upon all our crops planted upon level 
land, these oats among others. 
Three other varieties of oats furnished by the department of agriculture, 
the White Schonen, Black Swedish and Somerset, were sown, but the heavy 
rains ruined them entirely. 
Of those varieties of cabbage which have been in cultivation, the Schwein- 
furt Quintal, and Marblehead Drumhead, (cannon ball variety), are the only 
kinds that promise to be of special value. Lenormand’s short-stemmed cauli¬ 
flower also promises well. 
Upon ore portion of the land prepared last year for mowing, unleached 
ashes were sown last spring, at the rate of forty bushels per acre. The esti¬ 
mated yield upon this portion of the field was double that upon any other 
portion. 
The grass was mostly Kentucky blue grass (Poa pratensis)^ and white clover; 
the soil clayey with clay subsoil. 
CLOVER AS A PREPARATORY CROP FOR WHEAT. 
From a paper in tlie journal of the Eoyal Agricultural 
Society of England by Dr. Augustus Yoelcker, professor of 
agriculture at Cirencester, we take the following: 
Reasons are given in the beginning of this paper which it is hoped will 
have convinced the reader that the fertility of land is not so much measured 
by the amount of ash constituents of plants which it contains, as by the 
amount of nitrogen, which together with an excess of such ash constituents, 
it contains in an available form. It has been shown likewise that the 
removal from the soil of a large amount of mineral matter in a good clover 
