This section is from "The Horticulturist, And Journal Of Rural Art And Rural Taste", by P. Barry, A. J. Downing, J. Jay Smith, Peter B. Mead, F. W. Woodward, Henry T. Williams. Also available from Amazon: Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste.
Dear Sir: I should like to send you some of my seedling potatoes in the spring. They are from the "caster" variety. They are very productive - the parent yielding more than two hundred and seventy-five, and the highest five hundred and eighty bushels per acre, without any manure, except plaster and ashes.
I have also some nine hundred to one thousand varieties from the boll, not yet perfected.
I will send you a good variety of choice squash seeds.
I have found out a sure preventive of crows and worms working on corn and other grain; also to keep off bugs on vines, and it is sure cure; and last year I tried the same on plum-trees, and kept off the black knots, and it works to a charm; for, out of five plum-trees, in a row, to the two middle ones I applied the wash, and they had not a knot on them, and grew double what the others did, and the others were covered with black knots. I cannot say that it will always do the same, as I have only tried it on trees one year. I have applied for a patent. If generally used, it will add millions of bushels of grain to the yearly product.
Yours truly, and very respectfully, D. A. Bulkeley.
 
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