210 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



M. Graindorge, of Bagiolet, has fifty varieties of strawberries, twenty 

 of gooseberries, seven of raspberries, and ten of the finest kinds of grapes. 



Mons. Pepin said that the Caucasian Pyrethrum differed from the Pyre- 

 thrum roseum and the P. carneum used in Persia and in Russia, where 

 they pulverize the flowers for medical use, and to kill insects, which it is 

 energetic in doing. Some members doubted this singular property of the 

 powdered chamomile. Others had proved its power over insects. 



M. Varaskine says it is daily employed in E-ussia for that purpose. 



The Imperial Society has purchased a suitable building for its use in 

 Grenclle St. Ger?nain street, No. 84, having about 13,000 square feet, 

 with very solid walls, for 200,000 francs ($40,000). 



[Revue Horticole, Paris, Nov. 1858.] 



PALMA CHRISTI. {Ricinus Sanguimcs, or Ricinvs ObermannL) 



This variety grows ten feet high, and differs materially from our com- 

 mon Palma Christi. It is well worth cultivation. 



LENORMAND CAULIFLOWER. 



It is not a new species, but admirably cultivated. At the exhibition at 

 Lyons it is distinguished. Grown on a field of peas they, the heads, 

 measured in circumference upwards of four feet. The}^ are the most hardy 

 and finest of the class. 



The subject of the day, "Root Feeding," and "Fruit Trees in Spring," 

 was called up, and Prof. Mapes was requested to speak. 



Prof. Mapes deemed it best to use a few minutes in considering certain 

 new doctrines uttered in England, on the mode of applying manures." A 

 strong writer, /. D., appears in the London Farmers' Magazine, who 

 insists upon it that the method of making compost manure heaps is all 

 wrong; that the same materials, straw, &c., &c., spread over a field and 

 suffered to dry there by sun and wind, lets down into the soil, ammonia 

 and the other fertilizing constituents, doing more to enrich the grounel 

 than if it was buried in the soil. We all recollect the Gurney system — 

 the enriching the soil by covering it for a time with hay, straw, boards, or 

 anything else ! He called it a mulch. You have all noticed the effect. 

 J. D. decides that the long straw of barnyard manure being washed by 

 rains, thus fertilizes the soil ! True mulching is just as perfect in keeping 

 land when the hay, straw, boards or oiher muteviAl, h first umshed pe?-- 

 fectly dean ! An acre, therefore, covered all over by a fioor of clean 

 dry boards, is far more effectually fertilized than by the cleati dry straw. 

 Ammonia placed in a vessel in ice, ascends into the air as readily as from 

 soil or manure, and that contained in soil is arrested at the surface better 

 by the board than it is by the straw ! 



A German chemist has come out in England, where his novelties will 

 take much better than among the chemists of Germany, and he blazons the 



