81 
Carnivorous Plants. — Although physiologists have unive-rsally ac- 
cepted the facts originally proposed by Darwin as correct, yet there 
has been a disposition in some quarters, if not to question the fact, 
at least to doubt its utility. Mr. Francis Darwin undertook some 
experiments to satisfy the latter point, and now we have to record 
the results of some experiments made by M. Busgen. This gentle- 
man commenced his experiments with seedling Droseras, and ascer- 
tamed that the digestion of nitrogenous matter begins with the ap- 
pearance of the first leaf. The experiments were continued for two 
years, with the result that those plants " fed " with nitrogenous diet 
^ the shape of aphides and small insects were the more vigorous. 
Fourteen plants so treated produced seventeen flower-stalks and 
ninety seed-pods, while sixteen plants liot so treated produced only 
nine flower-stalks and twenty seed-pods. More conclusive still were 
the results of analysis, which (we cite from the Annales Agronomiques 
1884, p._238) showed for the first set a total weight of dry matter 
(remaining after the expulsion of water by heat) of 0.352, while the 
unfed plants yielded only 0.119 P^rts of a gramme {= 15 grains). — 
Gardeners' Chronicle, 
Timber in Texas. — As an illustration of the extent of the timber 
d wag- 
trade in North America the following extract from a recent report 
from Texas will be of interest; Notwithstanding the fact ihat the 
greater proportion of the State consists of immense prairie, Texas 
possesses the largest area of woodlands of any State in the Union. 
I'he timbered country is situated in Eastern Texas; and, according 
to the Forestry Report, in 1880 there were 63,000,000,000 feet of 
standing pine, worth, on the average at the mills if sawed up into 
planks, 12 dollars per 1,000 feet. Besides pine there are large (luan- 
tities of cypress timber, both red and white, from which roofing 
sliingles are made. At Beaumont these mills turn out 250,000 daily, 
and at Orange six shingle mills made during the year 1881 66,000,000 
cypress shingles. Bois d'arc {Madura aurantiacd) is very abundant 
in some counties, and for posts is unsurpassed, as it will_ last for years 
in the ground without rotting. It is also used for carriage anc 
gon spokes, and it is also coming into use for paving streets. 
Favorable I?ijluen€e of Climate on Vegetation in Alaska. — In some 
remarks before the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, upon 
glaciers in Alaska, Mr. Thomas Meehan observed that on the tops of 
what are known as "totem-poles " in some of the Indian villages, 
trees of very large size would often be seen growing. These poles 
^re thick logs of hemlock or spruce, set up before the door of Indian 
lodges, carved all over with queer characters representing living 
creatures of every description, and which are supposed to be gene- 
alogies, or to tell of some famous event in the family history. They 
are not erected by Indians now, and it is difficult to get any con- 
nected accounts of what they reallv tell- At the old village of 
Jj^aigan there are numbers of poles erected, with no carving at all on 
^i^em, among which many are wholly covered, and these all had one 
or more trees of Abies Sitkensis growing upon them. One tree must 
«ave been about twenty years old, and Was half as tall as the pole on 
^vnichit was growing. The pole may have been twenty feet high. 
