kditor's table. 



moisture nro particularly suitable. Hero, as elsewhere thronclioixt the ]»lace, the proatost 

 possihle peculiarity of comlition is introduced, not merely for the sake of additional variety, 

 but to furnish a congenial abode for that wondrous multitude of curious or ornamental 



plants to which such circumstances are naturally incidental." Desiccated or dried milk 



seems likely to become an article of commerce. The powder is placed in bottles, and will 

 keep in all climates and for any length of time. During the Crimean war, in tlie hospitals, 

 Sic, it was very useful. The French who make artificial diamonds so admirabb-, also 

 counterfeit milk, which is made by putting a certain weight of bones with a little meat, with 

 six times the weight of water, in Papin's digester. Being sealed hermetically, and raising 

 the heat to 140' F., in , forty minutes, from a stopcock, a white litjuid comes out. It is 

 nutritious, being a kind of broth, but has really none of the chemical proiicrties of milk. 



The poverty of iron among the Sarmatians, prompted their industry to invent a sort of 



cuirass, which was capable of resisting a sword or javelin, though it was formed only of 

 horses' hoofs, cut into thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other in the manner 



of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an imder garment of coarse linen. In a 



very interesting report regarding the January storm, by Lieut. Bennet to Lieut. Maury, he 

 makes the following startling statement : " Are you aware that at this season of the year 

 the average number of shipwrecks is about one American vessel for every eight hours, and 

 that the total value of the losses at sea for the month of January is set down at something 



like four millions of dollars ?" A toad or a frog placed in a cucumber frame will effectually 



relieve it from wood lice. He soon dispatches the whole brood. Nasturtiums of different 



colors make a very showy bed ; simply by driving down posts and nailing laths on them, 



these beautiful flowers will cover a large surface, and be perpetually gay. A drying 



chamber is highly recommended abroad, for drying French beans, carrots, cabbages, onions 

 and celery, by a current of air heated to 100°, by which, it is asserted, all the good qualities 

 of those vegetables are perfectly preserved, and retain their peculiar flavors. Sweet herbs, 

 too, are saved immediately by this process. Bark for tanning, thus cured, is said to retain 

 its valuable qualities better than that dried in the open air. They begin, indeed, in England, 



to talk much of drying the grain crops in this way. Bouchere's mode of preserving wood 



is much spoken of in the French journals. Soon after the tree is felled, a saw cut is made in 

 the centre, the tree is slightly raised under this, which partially opens the cut which is tied 

 up, the support withdrawn and the cut is entirely closed. An auger hole is then bored 

 obliquely into the saw cut, and a wooden tube inserted to which a flexible tube is attached, 

 placed in connection with an elevated reservoir ; the sap exudes, and its place is taken by 

 the solution of sulphate of copper. The results mentioned are really wonderful, and the 

 least esteemed woods, and therefore the cheapest, are precisely those which afi'ord the best 



results. A little rosin powdered and dusted over peas, &c., when sown, effectually 



protects them from the depredations of birds, mice, and other vermin. At Kew Gardens, 



in a glass case is a plant of Opuntia coccinellifera covered with the cochineal insect. This 

 has been an inhabitant of these gardens for these last forty years and more ; it has, however, 

 sometimes been nearly lost from those unacquainted with it clearing it off the plants, 

 thinking it a pest which had no business there. 



Florals Dictionary/, by Mrs. E. W. Wirt, widow of the late distinguished William Wirt. 

 This is an illustrated manual of the poetry of horticulture, and will greatly gratify those 



who would 



" Gather a wreath from the garden bowers, 

 To tell the wish of their hearts in flowers." 



It is intended as a presentation book. See advertisement. The venerable authoress 

 deceased, a few weeks since, at Baltimore, at the advanced age of seventy-tlii-ee. 



fes^^^' 



