88 General Notices. 



tion in saying that the culture of plants (more especially the garden culture 

 of exotics) will never be brought to anything like perfection till they have 

 each and all been submitted to chemical examination, the proportion of all 

 their saline constituents accurately determined, and the nature of the soil for 

 each chosen upon these grounds. (JUadclen in Quart. Joitrn. Agr., vol. x. p. 96.) 



Sending Cuttings by Letter. — 1 saw a notice some time ago, in your Maga- 

 zine, of a plan for sending small slips of plants to a distance by folding them 

 up in oiled paper. I had previously sent some cuttings of geraniums a journey 

 of 250 miles, by enclosing them in tinfoil, the edges of which were well 

 folded, even so as to prevent evaporation ; and, on their arrival at their desti- 

 nation, they were as fresh, to all appearance, as when first taken from the 

 parent plant. The facilities of the new postage system may render such a 

 plan very frequently available. — W. Scurfield Grey. Stockton on Tees, Dec. 

 19. 1840. 



The Maggot in Onions cannot be destroyed without destroying the crop at 

 the same time; but the perfect insect, which is a species of il'/usca not unlike 

 the house-fly, may be prevented from laying its eggs on the young plants, by 

 watering them twice or thrice a week, from the middle of May to the begin- 

 ning of July, with any fetid liquid, such as stale soapsuds mixed with a little 

 stale tobacco water. The fly lays its eggs in the axils of the leaves, and the 

 caterpillar, when hatched, eats its way down to the centre of the bulb, where 

 it remains, feeding on its substance, till mature, and it then eats its way out 

 through the bottom or side of the bulb, and undergoes in the soil its next 

 stage of transformation, coming out a winged insect in six weeks or two 

 months afterwards. This information was given us by a very intelligent young 

 gardener from Lancashire, John Catton, at present working in RoUison's 

 nurseries, Tooting. — Cond. Dec. 18. 1840. 



That Amount of Instruction which is ivoi'thy the Title of Education consists 

 in such a direction given to the thoughts, by the nature of the lessons con- 

 veyed, as shall produce a permanent good influence on the mind and heart. 

 In this view, a person may be so far instructed as to read and write well, 

 without such direction having been given to the reading and writing as to 

 constitute education. When education has been grafted upon instruction, the 

 intellectual powers are cultivated-, and the heart ameliorated. " Instruction 

 operates on the mind, education on the heart ; and we know that sin is 

 engendered in the heart." Instruction must prepare the way for education, 

 and becomes more and more competent as it advances. " Education, though 

 not always successful, as no human method can be, is the most perfect in- 

 strument for restraining persons from vice and crime. Let those then who 

 object to instruction improve the methods in use, and supply education in its 

 stead ; a sound and really efficient education, which will reach the under- 

 standing as well as the memory, the heart as well as the hand and eye ; and 

 which, while it teaches the people that they have duties to perform to their 

 Maker and their fellow-creatures, will furnish them also with that knowledge 

 which will enable them the more easily and the more efficiently to fulfil all 

 their duties to themselves and their families, namely, that of providing for their 

 temporal wants, of raising themselves above the temptations of poverty and 

 the degradation of de|)endence. {Morn. Chron., Dec. 26. 1840.) 



Music, as a Branch of Popular Education. — Among the measures now in 

 progress for the education of the people, the importance of music, as a branch 

 of public instruction, has not been overlooked. A paper has just been printed 

 and circulated under the authority of the Committee of the Privy Council on 

 Education, announcing the establishment of a singing school in London for 

 schoolmasters, and containing an account of the manner in which it is to be 

 conducted, lu this paper, which is ably drawn up, the great ami now 

 generally recognised benefits of music, as an agent in the religious, moral, and 

 social improvement of the people, are placed in a strong light: — 



" In those countries where the education of the people has received the 

 greatest attention, instruction in singing has long been regarded as an im- 



