314 Notes and Gleanings. 



like starch, which are quite inert, in containing nitrogen. This is an element 

 \cry difficult to bring into combination, and very restive when combined. This 

 rcsliveness seems to have something to do with the proneness to change so 

 characteristic of protoplasm. It is noticeable that nitrogen is a component in 

 most explosive compounds, and also of many medicinal and poisonous vegetable 

 principles. Gardener''s Chronicle. 



Fruit in London. — The following remarks on the fruit supply in London 

 arc from the Pall Mall Gazette. How different the case in this country, where 

 a fruit stand is found on every corner ! We believe, however, that there are 

 fewer nectarines and apricots seen here, as well as in England, than formerly, — 

 of course excepting California. 



" Perhaps one of the chief reasons why there is so much intemperance in this 

 country is to be found in the difficulty of obtaining any good fruit at a reasonable 

 ])rice. How small a percentage of the inhabitants of London have ever tasted 

 a peach for instance ! Grapes are a luxury only within reach of the wealthy, 

 and except sour apples and oranges the poorer classes have no fruit which they 

 may call their own. For some reason or other fruit appears to become more 

 .scarce each year in this country. Nectarines and apricots, once common, are 

 now rarely seen, and in a few years will probably disappear altogether. The 

 same may be said of hautboy strawberries, which a quarter of a century ago 

 were as plentiful as gooseberries. It would be an inestimable boon to all dwel- 

 lers in cities if large depots of fresh fruit and vegetables, to be procured at 

 reasonable prices, were to take the f)lace of the dirty little green-grocers' shops 

 where stale cabbages and unripe mouldy fruit are retailed at exhorbitant 

 charges ; nor should this be impossible, for there are fe\y trades more profitable 

 than market gardening : but the truth is that great improvements have yet to be 

 effected in the packing of fruit and vegetables, and the cooking of the latter. 

 When fruit arrives, even at the green-grocers's shop, it is too often in a damaged 

 and "unfresh" condition, and vegetables, which equally suffer in transit, are 

 only purchased as luxuries, for the simple reason that, apart from their cost, few 

 people know how to cook them in such a manner that they may be used as sub- 

 stitutes for animal food. It is to be hoped that one of these days some method 

 will be discovered by which fruit and vegetables may be packed and transmitted 

 with as little damage as Australian beef and mutton, and the market for these 

 articles be placed on a more satisfactory footing than it rests upon at present." 



A Monster Cutting. — A large weeping willow tree having broken off 

 some feet from the ground, where the circumference was two feet and eight 

 inches, the jagged end of the stem was cut off, so as to form a smooth base to 

 liie cutting, and a few small branches were trimmed off, leaving a clear stem 

 eight feet in length. This was planted in a hole, four feet and a half deep, near 

 the margin of a lake, the bottom of the hole being a foot or eighteen inches 

 below the water level, and the soil rammed very firmly around it. This was in 

 November, 1865, and the experiment proved a complete success, the tree being 

 in a healthy state, and making a vigorous growth the past summer. 



Gardener's Magazine. 



