by a French writer, to be produced by the "truffle fly," which stings the root of the oak 

 trees, and produces the truflle in the same manner as the gall insect produces the gall-nut ; 

 and a Mr. Ravel, of Switzerland, asserts that he can supply the larvae of the insect ; adding 

 that each species of truffle has its own kind of oak and its own truffle fly. We wish some 

 of our insects would produce something as good. But Dr. Lindley poses the Frenchman 



by asserting that truffles are propagated by spawn in the same way as mushrooms, The 



Pampas Grass continues to receive attention abroad, and we have a specimen coming on 

 favorably. On stems nine feet high, it produces noble panicles of flowers ; one, in England, 



had eighteen panicles, and, when it spreads, it will be a fine ornament for a lawn. 



There are annually manufactured in the United States 2,160,000 shovels, or about six hun- 

 dred dozen per day. They are made entirely in this country ; about one-third the number 

 in Massachusetts, the rest in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and other cities. As the shovel is 

 one of the civilizers of the world, the annual demand for that useful article shows how 

 much the people of the United States are contributing, by their labor, towards improving 



the social condition of mankind. A new number (the third) of Dr. Hooker's beautiful 



Flora of Tasmania has been issued. The plates consist wholly of composites ; the letter- 

 press extends into Ericacete. Pinus Austriaca is found to be an excellent plant for mov- 

 ing ; they may be ti'ausferred without much risk, nine or ten feet high. The solution 



of gum shellac in alcohol, which gardeners employ for covering cuts and wounds in trees, 

 has been used with success, in Westminster Abbey, as a cement to the loose crumbling 

 parts of old monuments, so that the ancient form and appearance are permanently preserved. 

 If melted white wax is carefully run upon marble for the open air, it will preserve it for an 



indefinite period, the wax being highly indestructible. Though the name of Sir Jauisetjee 



Jejeebhoy sounds very outlandish, it belongs to a princely minded Parsee in India, who has 

 just given the sum of $50,000 to establish a school of design in Bombay. One of oiir Phila- 

 delphia merchants rejoices in a correspondent thence who has the name of Pah-Butty- 



Bassy-Baboo, and a very rich Baboo he is. Two most important points are now attracting 



the attention of practical people — steam culture, and drying of grain in bulk as soon as 

 gathered; both promise immense advantages, amounting to a "revolution." A great de- 

 posit of copper has been opened, by an earthquake, in New Zealand. A region of about 4,600 

 square miles was raised in some places one foot, and, in others, much more. A chain of ancient 

 rocks was upheaved vertically, and now forms a clifi' nine feet high, which can be followed 



for ninety miles, exhibiting the veins of copper. A new process for extracting sugar from 



all kinds of vegetables, has been published by the Academy of Sciences at Paris ; it is the 

 discovery of M. Maurice, that sugar exposed to the action of cold water undergoes a change 

 known to chemists, which prevents its crystallization. A beet-root, dug up and stowed 

 away, is a cone of cold water, and the longer it lies the more is the sugar diminished, keeping 

 it under shelter making no difference ; and the same with sugar-cane. The remedy is to 

 crush out the juice at once, discharge it into large cisterns, and throw in a quantity of lime 

 whereby a saccharate of lime is formed which will keep a whole year, and an immense 

 increase of sugar over the old processes is the result. At Wilton Park, the place men- 

 tioned by Emerson, in his English Traits, so handsomely, there are some remarkable Cedars 

 of Lebanon — one, the bole of which measures twenty-three and one-half feet in circum- 

 ference, with a fine head in proportion ; there are also several others nearly equally large. 

 Those who have been accustomed to see the South American Orchids grown in a high tem- 

 perature, would be surprised to see the luxuriance of these plants here ; they stand in 

 vineries in which are a quantity of grapes : consequently, they are exposed to currents of 



air both day and night. Alfred Delvan has written some curious articles on the trees of 



He states that the climate of that city has been unfavorably modified sine 

 notion of the woods and forests. But his most novel speculation asserts that 



