editor's table.. 



considered them synonymous of it ; but all our Southern friends claim that Lenoir is a dis- 

 tinct variety, and much earlier than any of the others, and also, at least, that some of the 

 others are distinct. The matter is now under investigation, and we must wait the result 

 before deciding." By a curious coincidence, the ad interim Report from Georgia, and Mr. 

 Downiug's book, reached our table on the same day. 



McMakon's Gardening. — The eleventh edition of McMahon's large octavo on American Gar- 

 dening, illustrated, and with additions and alterations, to bring it up to the day, has been 

 published by Lippincott & Co., of Philadelphia. It has had the careful examination of a 

 practical gardener well known to the American public. 



Patent Office Reports for 1856, 3 vols. 



Sorgho and Imphee, the Chinese and African sugar-canes. By Henry S. Olcott. Illus- 

 trated. New York : A. 0. Moore, 1857. The whole story is here ably told. 



Part IV. of Dr. Hooker's Flora of Tasmania (4to., Reeve) has been published. It con- 

 tains the Van Diemau's Land orders from Ericeae to Proteacese, reaching the 320th page and 

 80th plate. No fewer than forty species of Epacrids are described, among which is a new 

 genus, Archeria ; Tasmania thus produces about one-eighth of the whole order. 



Michigan Agricultural Transactions. — Mr. J. C. Holmes, the Secretary, will please accept 

 our sincere thanks for a complete set of the Michigan Agricultural Transactions, which 

 contain much of great value, and shall receive an examination soon. The volumes increase 

 in bulk yearly, like a youth who is growing to manhood ; should they go on growing, they 

 will soon be giants. We would suggest to all public libraries the propriety and utility of 

 collecting these State publications, which will transmit to posterity a history of our doings, 

 better, perhaps, than any other sjiecies of printed books. They will be examined by anti- 

 quaries and commented on by our successors with eager interest ; the improvements noted, 

 and our — to them — odd beginnings will be a fruitful source of amusement sometimes. 



Gossip. — What is the source of the vegetable matter conveyed to sterile soils, except the 

 minute portion contained in the seeds wafted thither by winds or waves ? a vast quantity 

 has been produced, and is represented not only by the existing vegetation, but by the rich 

 mould imparted to the soil by the decay of previous generations. The necessary materials 

 exist in the air ; plants possess the peculiar faculty of drawing them from the air ; the air 

 must have furnished the whole. If a bean be germinated on pounded flints or glass, and 

 has attained all the development it is capable of under such circumstances, it will be found 

 to weigh many times as much as the seed from which it sprang ; a small portion only could 

 be derived from the flints or glass ; let its ashes, therefore, be deducted, and its carbon alone 

 be taken into account. This element — which may have increased fifty or a hundred fold 

 — can have been derived only from the carbonic acid brought to the plant by the rain-water 

 and the air. Vegetable mould increases with the age of the forest, and the trees must draw 

 from the air not only the carbon which their trunks contain, but the additional quantity 



which they impart to the soil in the annual fall of leaves. A good writer in Blackwood, 



alluding to the paradox of the love of darkness manifested by some of the marine animals 

 who congregate in caves or under rocks, says : " Let us be ignorant ! Let us acquiesce in 

 mysteries (when we cannot penetrate them), nor vex with noisy questionings the imper- 

 turbable reserve of nature, remembering the words of the poet, that ' fools rush in where' 

 gentlemen acquainted with zoology ' fear to tread.' " Describing the Brittle Star, he says : 

 ' You would never imagine how sensitive he is to an" insult. Place but a finger on him, 

 he breaks up his dishonored body into fragments before your eyes. He thinks no more 



