378 Scientific Intelligence. — Statistics. 



36. The Dahlia. — It is not above twenty years since the name 

 of Dahlia (or Georgina, as it is universally called on the Conti- 

 nent), was first heard of in this country as an ornamental flower. 

 Beino- a native of Mexico, it was at first considered as a very 

 tender plant, and its cultivation was regarded as troublesome 

 and difficult. At this day it has become a common border and 

 shrubbery flower, and a clump of the fine double flowers form 

 one of the ornaments of every good garden. Its cultivation is 

 now found to be comparatively easy ; it being only necessary to 

 keep the tubers among dry sand, and secure from frost during 

 winter, and to cause them to vegetate slightly in a hot-bed, like 

 sets of earlv potatoes, in the spring, before planting them out. 

 There are, botanically speaking, two species of Dahlia ; the su- 

 perflua and ihefriistranea ; all the varieties having large dou- 

 ble flowers belonging to the former, and all the small brilliant 

 orange-coloured single flowers to the latter. It has, within 

 these very few years, become common among the curious to 

 raise Dahlias from the seed of fine semi-double flowers in our 

 Scottish gardens, and thus to procure numerous new varieties. 

 Here, then, will be a good opportunity for observing whether 

 the Dahlia, in the course of successive generations, or reproduc- 

 tions from Scottish seed, shall, according to the theory suggest- 

 ed bv Sir Joseph Banks regarding the Zizania aquatica, ac- 

 quire a somewhat more hardy character, better suited to the cli- 

 mate of Scotland. 



37- Caprification. — Tournefort, in his Travels, mentions that, 

 in Provence, the maturation of figs was hastened by pricking 

 them at the open end with a straw dipped in olive oil. Colonel 

 Thackery informs us that a similar practice prevails at Malta, 

 and at other places in the Mediterranean ; and he adds, Vtrhat 

 is of some importance in so precarious a cUmate as ours, that he 

 has successfully followed the practice in Scotland. 



STATISTICS. 



38. Influence of Indigence on the Mortality of Men in the 

 different Countries of Europe, from the commencement of the 

 Nineteenth Century. — M. Dumeril made two reports to the 

 French Academy, on two memoirs by M. Benoitson de Chau- 

 teauneuf, relative to questions in statistics. The author has 



