General Notices. 613 



the incessant clatter of stunning machinery, assume very doleful appear- 

 ances in the steaming room and dyeing tub, before their rare combination 

 of colors is offered on the counter. Every article of taste has gone through 

 an ordeal, which to fastidious nerves would not seem conducive to elegance. 

 There must be much drenching of water, much burning of tobacco, and 

 sprinkling of sulphur, many a fight with mildew and red spider, that the- 

 dainty step may thread its way among the healthy growth of blooming." 

 exotics, and taper fingers pluck fruit and flower from vine and plant, 

 whose congenial home is in the luxuriance and under the glowing sun of" 

 the tropics. 



There is a most expressive word, but of such doubtful gentility, that 

 dictionaries cannot mention it without adding (low) in parenthesis. This 

 much used word, often unjustly insulted with the epithet of vulgar, is — 

 Humbug. It is of extraordinary quality ; the mighty symbol of every 

 party ; a shibboleth, which all worship though none acknowledge. If it is 

 not blazoned in golden letters, as the presiding genius of popular assem- 

 blies, still it is present, hovering over chairman,and speaker, and spreading 

 its magical charm through the thickest array of political resolutions.. 

 Though not admissible in the highest flights of oratory, or the more refined 

 displays of conversation, yet it is often there, reigning supreme. It enters 

 the abodes of private life, and becomes the fireside deity where fashion sits 

 exultant in her elevation, and the humble imitator is beggared in the des- 

 perate effort to attain it. In truth, it is everywhere ; strange as it may. 

 seem in an age of common sense, and in a country of utilitarian usages. 



Ridicule will often effect more than the strongest appeals- 

 to reason or common sense, and we trust his hit at the custom 

 he alludes to will have some effect in rendering it " more 

 honored in the breach than the observance." 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General JVotices. 



Salvia Gesneriflora. — The fine long spikes of brilliant scarlet Ges- 

 nera-like flowers which this Sage produces from every properly ripened 

 shoot render it very striking, especially during the winter and spring 

 months. It may be easily grown to a large size in one season ; and I 

 doubt whether we possess a plant requiring so little skill for its successful 

 cultivation that is equally beautiful. It is not, however, very generally met 

 with, which may possibly be attributed to the fact that it requires to be 

 grown to the desired size, and wintered in that state to have it bloom in 

 anything like perfection ; if this is a fault, however, it is one which pertains 

 to the majority of our most esteemed greenhouse plants. 



VOL. XVIII. NO. XI. 65 



