editor's table. 



The Grammar of Ornament is the title of Mr. Owen Jones's great illustrated work on various 

 styles of ornament, which, the London Athemeum says, " is bright enough to serve a London 

 family in summer instead of flowers, and to warm a London room in winter as well as a 

 fire. It contains the result of a life's study, aided by pupils, friends, and workmen." It 



contains one hundred folio plates. Recently, at the London Horticultural Society, a young 



stem of the Rice Paper Plant {Aralia papyri/era), cut in the Island of Formosa by Mr. For- 

 tune, who has lately returned from China, was exhibited by that gentleman. He stated 

 that there is now no doubt that Formosa yields the greater part of the Rice paper of com- 

 merce. This beautiful substance is largely consumed in the Canton and Fokien provinces. 

 In the city of Foo-Chou-foo, every lady wears artificial flowers made from it. It is estimated 

 that this place alone consumes about 30,000 dollars' worth of it annually! The cheapness 

 of this article in the market shows that it must be very abundant in its place of gi'owth. 

 One hundred sheets, each about three inches square, can be bought for the small sum of 

 three halfpence. One almost wonders, Mr, F. remarked, that it is not more sought after by 

 workers in artificial flowers. Rice paper is the pith of the plant, cut into thin sheets by 



the Chinese. The Floricultural Cabinet gives a fine illustration of the Clematis lanuginosa, 



var. Pallida, and says it is one of the handsomest hardy climbers we possess, and remark- 

 able, more especially, for the immense size of its flowers, some of which have measured ten 

 inches in diameter. It resembles closely in habit C. patens and florida, and is therefore 

 excellently adapted for trellis-work, verandas, and other erections of like character. Hav- 

 ing stood the late severe winters at Paris with no other protection than a slight covering of 

 leaves, we may be assured that there are few places where it would not do well. It is easily 

 multiplied by layers or cuttings, and will no doubt prove a great acquisition to all who are 



fond of showy climbers. Plants are, says a late able writer, in virtue of their amazing 



ability to convert the simplest and commonest ingredients of air, earth, and water, into the 

 most complex and precious compounds, of as much value to the industrialist, considered 

 simply as pieces of apparatus, as the most elaborate engines he has constructed. Nor is it 

 otherwise with animals. They do not work with so simple a raw material as plants do ; 

 they use plants, indeed, directly or indirectly, as their raw material ; but they convert them 

 into products raised in industrial value by the additional workmanship bestowed upon 

 them. We have thus the silkwoiTQ, whose calling it is to turn mulberry leaves into silk ; 

 the bee, who turns sugar into wax ; the coccus, who turns cactus juice into carmine ; the 

 oyster, who turns sea-chalk into pearls ; the turtle, who turns seaweeds into tortoise-shell ; 

 and the whale, who turns see jellies into oil and whalebone. The birds are the only makers 

 of quills and feathers ; the hogs, of bristles ; the elephant, the walrus, and hippopotamus, of 

 ivory ; the sheep, of wool, not to speak of fat and mutton ; the ox and his congeners, of 

 undressed leather ; the beaver and his brethren, of hat-folt ; and myriads of wild creatures 

 of land and sea, of furs and skins. The most important industrial relation of many others 

 is their power, as machines, to convert weeds of various kinds into beef, mutton, venison, 

 milk, butter, eggs, the flesh of birds and beasts, and fishes. He continues thus : " At every 

 agricultural show, prizes are given to the exhibitors of vegetables and animals, which difl'er 

 as much from their protoplasts as Watt's steam-engine does from Savary's or Newcomen's. 

 So much has cultivation changed our most highly-prized cereals, that it is a matter of dis- 

 pute from what forgotten weeds wheat and barley, as we now see tliem, have been elabo- 

 rated. Our apples and pears were once sour crabs ; our plums, austere sloes ; our turnips, 

 acrid radishes. We have as truly created such fruits and vegetables as the chemist has 

 created ether or chloroform. The physiologist, no doubt, is much more limited than the 

 chemist as a creator, but he is as truly one. Both work under that aphorism of the Novum 



urn, which teaches us to conquer nature by obeying her." Dr. Lindley is w 



much, lately, regarding the decay of races, in which he upholds his former ojuuious 



