editor's table. 



Cdltuee of the Peak. — ^The ensuing number will contain an able article on the Compara- 

 tive Value of the Culture of the Pear and other Fruits, by L. B., of New Jersey, fairly writ- 

 ten, and favorable to that delicious production. We shall then have given both sides of the 

 question from valued correspondents, and thus leave our readers to form their own opinions 

 from facts that may come under their own notice, no less than from the experience of good 

 practitioners recorded in these pages. 



CuRCULio. — A very sensible remedy for this pest is proposed in the Ohio Valley Farmer, by 

 Mr, Walker, of Kentucky. As soon as the fruit is attacked, take a tin pan into which soap- 

 suds has been placed to the depth of an inch or so ; place it in the tree, and place a small 

 glass globe lamp in the middle of the pan, which permit to burn all night. In darting 

 towards the light, the curculios strike the glass, and are precipitated into the liquid, from 

 which they are unable to extricate themselves. 



The Old Gaedeness' Book. — Tliis very ancient work {Laicson\, 1626) is nearly ready for 

 publication, in black letter, and a. facsimile of the curious engravings. The annexed repre- 



sentation of trimming, digging, and planting, will give some idea of the book, of which we 

 shall have more to say in December. The work, which is a great literary curiosity, will be 

 offered for sale, as well as a premium to those who forward subscribers to the Horticulturist. 



Gossip. — The Havanese may be compared to the Chinese, in their love of smoking. Men, 

 women, and children, live with pipes in their mouths. The laborer smokes in the field, 

 the clerk at his desk, the traveller on horseback. " If," says M. Hue, " a person wakes in 

 the night, he lights his pipe." The most certain sign that a sick man is about to expire is, 

 that he ceases to inhale the fumes of tobacco. Upon this he expends his latest breath ; 

 and the native Christians who came to summon M. Hue to administer the sacraments to 

 the dying, always said, in proof of the desperateness of the case: " He no longer smokes." 

 On volcanic rocks, bare earth, naked walls, or in pure sand, plants are found to vege- 

 tate. On the bare spots above enumerated, is deposited the vegetable mould of leaves, &c.. 



