Death of Cuvier. 215 



steady friend to him. His .domestic life, which should have 

 been so happy, was cruelly troubled ; three sons, in infancy, pre- 

 ceded him to the tomb ; and his daughter, a model of grace and 

 virtue, was carried off at the moment when a happy marriage 

 had received his blessing. Of four children, which his wife had 

 by her first marriage, and which he had adopted, two were 

 arrested by death at the age when all risks seemed to have 

 ceased, and when hope had become reality. Oh I how power- 

 ful a balm must be the love of labour, the love of truth, and 

 of the public welfare, to give support under so many afflic- 

 tions. How many might I name who have been dear to him, 

 and who have warmly returned that sentiment ! If I dared 

 to limit the circle of his friends by the ties of nature, how many 

 would dispute that rank ? This homage, paid to the moral 

 qualities of Cuvier, will, I know, appear suspicious. He, who 

 hurriedly thus describes him, was his friend thirty-four years, 

 and honoured him still more for his heart than for his cele- 

 brity. And while, he writes in mourning, it is consoling to 

 have expressed, although no doubt imperfectly, yet with truth, 

 that he was one of the most eminent men that ever Europe 

 lost. 



De Candolle. 



Vegetable Physiology in Relation to Rotation of Crops. By 

 M. Macaire. 



In a Memoir inserted in the Transactions of the Societi de 

 Physique et d'Histoire Naturelk of Geneva, M. Macaire has 

 stated some physiological facts, worthy of being generally 

 known. 



A judicious rotation of crops is known to be a matter of great 

 importance. One kind of vegetable (A) will grow and flourish 

 well in a soil from which another kind of vegetable (B) has 

 just been gathered; while an attempt to raise another crop of 

 the first vegetable (A), or a crop of the third vegetable (C) 

 immediately after the first (A) in the same soil, will be attended 

 with little or no success. The discovery of this fact, which is 

 almost as ancient as agriculture itself, is supposed to have led to 



