Domestic Notices. 35 



Art. II. Repoj-t of the Commissioner of Patents. Thick 

 pamphlet, 8vo. pp. 448. 



The Report of the Commissioner for 1844, is much ex- 

 tended in the AgriciiUiiral Department, and 20,000 copies 

 were ordered to be printed for the use of the senate. 



The disease of ihe potato occupies several pages, and all 

 the information up to the time of the publication of the 

 report has been treasured up. The production of madder, 

 indigo, sugar from corn-stalks, potato sugar, &c. the applica- 

 tion of guano, and various other subjects, all useful to the 

 agriculturist, are noticed and discussed at length; indeed, 

 the report comprises a great deal of excellent information, 

 for which the public are indebted to their indefatigable com- 

 missioner, Mr. Ellsworth. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. Domestic Notices. 



A Neiu Scirpus. — " A remarkable Sclrpus has been discovered this sea- 

 son, near Providence, Rhode Island, by Mr. Olney, (the author of a Cata- 

 logue of Rhode Island plants, 1845). 



Scirpus O'lneyi. {n. sp. Asa Gray). This species is most allied to S. 

 piingens Vahl (S. americanus Pers,) from which it is especially distin- 

 guished by its remarkably three-winged stem. The reentering angles are 

 so deep, that the cross section presents the appearance of three rays with 

 parallel sides, joined at a common centre. This species has just been de- 

 tected on the coast of New Jersey by that very assiduous botanist, Dr. 

 Kneiskern, from whose specimens I have added the characters of the ache- 

 nium ; as the fruit has failed to ripen this year in the Rhode Island plant." 

 Dr. Asa Gray, in the Boston Journal of Natural History, Vol. V., No. 2, 

 p. 238, note. 



Miisd. Cavendishii. — This fine species is growing vigorously in the garden 

 of D. F. Manice, Esq., L. I., and produced the last year a spike of fruit 

 numbering more than two hundred. The extreme height, from the leaves 

 to the soil, is 9 feet, the girth of the trunk 2 feet. The plant is growing 

 in a large tub 8 feet in girth and 2 feet high ; the soil employed is loam 

 and dung ; it has been freely watered with liquid guano. Last winter, it 

 was kept in the conservatory where the thermometer often fell as low as 

 36°. — Yours, R. Parnell, Oatlands, Aug. 1845. 



Northampton Agricultural, Horticultural and Floricultural Club. — A 

 society under this name was formed in Northampton last year, the objects 

 of which, as set forth in the constitution, are the " circulation of general 



