Gossip. — The principal objection to good garden toola ia thoir costliness ; but this is more 

 nominal than real, for, from their bettor quality, they generally outlast toola of an inferior 

 stamp, and thus they are more economical in the end than common articles, of whioh the 

 fii-st cost may be considerably less. In every article needful in gardens, even including 

 men, the best will always be the cheapest, although costing the mo.st money. Two mil- 

 lions sterling in value of beet-root spirits were distilled in France last year — a monstrous 

 increase on former seasons. Sheep and bullocks are fed on the residues of beet after dis- 

 tillation, which may have liad something to do with the spread of the cattle murrain. A 



party has lately ascended Chimborazo, and pronounce it perfectly accessible. Its height is 



19,632 feet. The plover is pronounced, by a writer in the Gardeners'' Chronicle, a perfect 



slug destroyer. He says: "A couple of these most interesting birds (male and female) 

 would, I am almost certain, soon clear, and keep clear, any one'^s ground ; and if lie is a 

 lover of animated nature, and these birds should breed, he will be delighted with the ex- 

 treme tenderness they manifest towards their young, which are produced about the month 

 of May ; and he had better get young ones, as the old, being very wild of flight, would most 

 likely pine. The young are so like the clods or stones among which they are hatched (as 

 the parents make no nest) that, but for the glint of the bright large eye, they would remain 

 undiscovered, and as long as danger is near they lie like stones, until the anxious old ones 

 give the safety call, when they rise and run about nimbly. They feed by night as well as 

 by day, for, on returning home at night from a visit in the country, I have heard a whole 

 flock of them giving tongue like a pack of hounds in the marshy meadows, or, rather, like 

 a troop of aldermen over a turtle feast, for the slugs and worms do not like to show their 



faces in the bright sunshine so well as the dewy nights of summer." Mr. McEwen is now 



the Superintendent of the Horticultural Societies' garden at Turnham Green, London, and 

 is giving great satisfaction. Among his improvements, the American garden is being 

 altered and increased in extent, and, in order to induce people visiting other portions of the 

 grounds to turn their steps in that direction, the walk between it and the conservatory is 

 to be lined with standard Rhododendrons, which, when in flower, will doubtless produce a 

 brilliant display quite in keeping with the character of the grounds of which they are in- 

 tended to form a part. An apparatus for determining night temperatures at different alti- 

 tudes, has been erected in the kitchen garden. It consists of a pole 30 feet in height, with 

 registering thermometers attached to it ; one at the top, another 24 feet from the ground, a 

 third 18 feet from ditto, a fourth 12 feet, a fifth G feet, and a sixth nearly at the ground. On 

 the morning of the 13th of March, the thermometer on the ground indicated 28^^, at 6 feet high 

 310, and at 12 feet 32°, making a difference of 4° in that height. On the 16th, the differ- 

 ence of warmth between the same height and the ground was 80. The practical lesson to 

 be learned from these facts will be obvious. They serve, in some measure, to explain the 

 reason why blossoms have been killed by spring frosts on dwarf fruit-trees, while those on 

 tall standards have escaped, and, also, the necessity of protecting tlie leading shoots of the 

 more tender Conifers, and other favorite plants, in severe winters until they have grown at 

 least 12 feet in height. From that to 30 feet in height, the temperature lias hitherto been 

 found to be the same. As yet, however, these experiments may be said to be but in their 



infancy. At one of the last meetings of the Academic des Sciences, at Paris, a member 



produced a number of wheat-halms of more than seven feet in height, each of them bear- 

 ing several splendid ears. This fine species comes from five grains found in an Egyptian 

 tomb ; sown in 1849, they yielded 1,200 fold produce. In 1850, the experiments were made 

 on a large scale, and assumed a more important character ; they have since been regularly 

 continued. One half of a field was sown with the Egyptian, the other half with common 

 wheat; the former gave 60 fold, the second a 15 fold produce. The experiments are now 

 made in always increasing extension, and we may be on the eve of a great revolution 



