^aStlEf nil. 



Fig Cuttings. — There have been imported from the south of France some choice varie- 

 ties of the Fig. They are designed for experiment in Southern and Southwestern States, 

 where it is known that this product thrives well. As the fig is a great luxury, either in 

 its green or dried state, we trust that before many years it will be multiplied to that 

 degree which will render it as common in Southern markets as the orange or any ether 

 fruit. From some experiments made in Alabama, it is found that, with suflScient enter- 

 prise and a judicious expenditure of capital, figs can be cultivated with great profit by 

 drying, for the supply of other States. 



A seventh edition of Hooker and ArnoWs British Flora (Longmans, 145.) has just ap- 

 peared. It seems to have been carefully revised by the learned authors, and will be 

 found an excellent field companion. We rejoice to find here, as elsewhere in so many 

 places, fresh recruits for the new crusade against bad species ; and we hope to see, when 

 the next edition appears, that the genera Salix, Rubus, Rosa, &c., will be finally dealt 

 with as they require. Sir William Hooker in his " Flora Scotica," and Professor Lind- 

 ley in his " Monograph of Roses," began well ; but we cannot say conscientiously that 

 either has been true to his principles. The time, however, has evidently arrived when 

 a determined stand must be made against spurious science, and we trust that no more 

 time will be lost in drawing a clear distinction between botanists and botanophilists. 

 — Gardeners' Chronicle. 



A Fact in Manuring. — A person carrying some orange trees from China to the Prince 

 of Wales' Island, when they had many hundred fruit on them, expected a good crop the 

 next year, but was utterly disappointed : they produced but few. A Chinese, settled in 

 in the island, told him if he would have his trees bear, he must treat them as they were 

 accustomed to in China ; and he described the following process for providing manure : 

 — "A cistern, so lined and covered as to be air-tight, is half-filled with animal matter; 

 and to prevent bursting from the generation of air, a valve is fixed which gives way 

 with some difficulty, and lets no more gas escape than is necessary : the longer the 

 manure is kept the better, till four years, when it is in perfection ; it is taken out in the 

 cons'stence ne.arly of jelly, and a small portion buried at the root of every orange tree — 

 the result being an uncommonly great yield." A person hearing of the above fact, and 

 wishing to abridge the term of the preparation, thought that ))oiling animals to a jelly 

 might have a similar if not so strong an effect. Accordingly, he boiled several puppies, 

 and applied the jelly to the roots of a sterile fig-tree : the benefit was very great — the 

 tree from that time for several years bearing in profusion Hints of this kind are well 

 worth preserving, for though a farmer may neither have the apparatus of the Chinese, 

 nor puppies enough to become an object of attention, yet the reduction of manure to a 

 mucilaginous state ought perhaps to be carried further than it is. 



