388 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 
tillage and seed bed, all of which may have been imposed upon him 
by the character of the year. 
The list of recently introduced agricultural plants, on which Mr, 
Buckman comments in the columns of the ‘ Agricultural Gazette,’ 
includes the following :—Schroeder’s Brome grass, a coarse species 
of a coarse genus, which is not likely, except under sewage irrigation 
and excessive consequent succulence of growth, to be of much service 
to English agriculture: Anthyllis vulneraria, or Lady’s fingers, a 
common English wild plant, whose hairiness and dryness are said 
to be diminished or to disappear under cultivation, so that in 
certain circumstances it becomes a useful forage plant : Symphytum 
asperrimum, the prickly comfrey, yielding a large bulk of forage 
useful as cow-food, which, however, requires to be cut often while 
young, as it soon becomes too rough and unmanageable: and the 
cattle gourds or melons, which furnish in hot summers a great 
quantity of somewhat insipid and watery flesh, also good for cow-food. 
Among other subjects less within the scope of this “ Chronicle,” 
to which the attention of agriculturists has been directed during 
the past quarter, are the need of central chambers of Agriculture, 
through which attention to class interests can be urged upon 
Government ; the necessity of altered arrangements for the supply 
of animal food to consumers—an extension of the dead-meat market 
at the expense of the existing live-cattle markets, i London and in 
other large inland towns; and the existence of considerable dis- 
satisfaction in many country districts with the rate of payment for 
farm-labour. No doubt this will gradually rise, and it 1s very desirable 
that it should. The rapid draught which is being made upon the 
number of the labouring class in rural districts by other better-paid 
occupations tends inevitably to this result. And the greater need 
of labouring men which exists in agriculture, with every extension 
of the meat manufacture now stimulated so much by market prices, 
acts in the same direction. 
II, ASTRONOMY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Royal Astronomical Society.) 
Mr. W. L. Dicxryson has read a paper before the Literary and 
Philosophical Society of Manchester, containing the results of caleu- 
lations relative to the Eclipse of the Sun, and to two Occultations of 
the star Aldebaran by the Moon, visible this year. The calculations 
have been made for the Observatory of Robert Worthington, Esq., 
F.R.A.S., Crumpsall, near Manchester, Lat. 53° 30' 50" 0 N., 
Long. 0° 8’ 56.16 W. The elements used in the computations 
have been obtained from the ‘Nautical Almanack.’ The partial 
