Domestic J^otices. 113 



Mimulus cardinhlis. — The very beautiful J^Iimulus cardinalis does 

 not seem to require so much moisture in its treatment as the other 

 showy varieties do: it is one mass of beautiful scarlet flowers. — Id. 



Monthly cabbage Rose. — Did you ever hear of the monthly cabbage 

 rose? They have it about Philadelphia; it is truly the king of roses, 

 blooms freely and profusely during the summer, and the hotter the 

 weather the finer the flowers. It is exactly like the old cabbage rose in 

 shape and size, and only a shade darker; the foliage and growth par- 

 takes of the hybrid varieties, but essentially differing from them in being 

 a perpetual bloomer. If you have it not get it forthwith, — if you re- 

 pent your purchase, charge me double for your magazine. — Yours, Rosa, 

 Philadelphia, Feb. 9, 1837. 



Culture of the Sugar Beet — Manufacture of Silk and Cotton. — I have 

 sanguine hopes that the sugar beet culture will succeed and flourish 

 with us as it now does in France. Silk and the sugar beet, I learn from 

 the best authority from France, are the all engrossing objects of culture 

 at this time in that country. There even the cake of the beet which 

 remains after pressing is stated to be worth more for cattle than the 

 roots in their original state, being mm'e condensed and less watery. It 

 is evident that great and most decisive improvements have been made 

 in JVance, which have turned the scale entirely, since Count Chaptal 

 and Sonard were concerned in its manufacture. For then, even in that 

 country, its manufacture could not be sustained with all the encourage- 

 ment which a protective system and high prices could afford; but then,, 

 according to Mr. Iznard, only 2 lbs. of sugar could be produced from 

 100 lbs. of beet; but now 6 or 7 lbs. is produced, and in Silesia, it is 

 said, 10 l!»s. are produced from 100 lbs. of roots, which quite alters the 

 case — now it progresses astonishingly. Sugar is a food, one of the 

 most solid, nutritious, wholesome, and economical of all the necessaries 

 of life; inasmuch as the whole tribe of fruits, even the refuse of our or- 

 chards, however acid and austere, may be converted at once into the 

 most palatable and wholesome supplies of food for man, by the addition 

 of sugar. Also the most insipid and tasteless articles which we con- 

 sume as our food and drink. Its antiseptic qualities are well known in 

 the preservation of meat, &c. 



I have great expectations in regard to silk and its culture a- 

 ni»ng us. Look but at the impitjvements already made in its man- 

 ufacture. At Nantucket I have seen the looms which will weave, 

 in finished style, pongees at the rate of two and a half inches in a 

 minute, and those who know best there are the most sanguine. We 

 have only to carry these same improvements into every branch. It is 

 vain to prescribe bounds and to tell where improvements are to stop. 

 They must pervade every department, from the connnencemcnt of the 

 culture till the perfect fabric is completed, and every invention must be 

 sought after to abridge lal)or, and to overcome its high price in our 

 country. I am confident that success will crown our endeavors, beyond 

 any reasonable doubt, as in all things else we have attempted. Let me 

 here just state how, by the ingenuity of our citizens and their enterprise 

 we have overcome all obstacles in regard to cotton. Even it is stated, 

 at this day, that the spindles of the throwing machines tor silk in Pied- 

 mont, and where the invention first began, perform but three or four 

 hundred revolutions in a miiuite, while in England they perform from 

 eighteen hundred to three thousand in the same time. But the spin- 

 dles of our machines for cotton, in America, on tiie same ])rincij)le, 

 are now made to revolve about five thousand times in aniinute. Twen- 

 ty years ago, the Walthajn Manufacturing C()nq)ariy put out all their 

 cotton yarn to weave in private families, and the cost of weaving No. 

 14 yarn into cloth thirty-seven and a half inches wide, was from eight 

 to twelve cents a yard, which is equal to the average price which the 

 VOL. UK NO. HI. 15 



