282 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



for every magpie's egg, to boys. The first year I got three hun- 

 dred, next year five hundred, and the third year eight hundred. 

 The Council General ot Aveyron are following this plan, which 

 should be generally adopted. 



ITALY, NEW FOREST. 



Mons. Charles Siemoni, of Patro Vecchio, gives thanks to the 

 society for the medal decreed to him. Prince Demidoff, in trans- 

 mitting his letter, says, that his works, and his hospitality to visi- 

 tors, are excellent. His plantations in Tuscany present a spectacle 

 perhaps uni(|ue in all Europe. It is a virgin forest, in which are 

 trees of eight hundred years of age; and he has beautifully 

 clothed mountains with new trees and vegetation. Thanks to the 

 will and perseverance of that enlightened sovereign, the Grand 

 Duke of Tuscany, the steepest summits of the Casentino, naked 

 almost, for ages, are now clothed with fifty millions of trees, shrubs, 

 &C.5 of various kinds. This splendid w^ork (says Mons. Siemoni) 

 will do more honor to the memory of the Grand Duke Leopold 

 II., than the most costly statues in marble or bronze. 



The president stated, that on the 16th of May last, a male lama 

 was born, at the Museum of Natural History, and is the product 

 of a third generation born in France since 1846; and that we 

 believe that it will be acclimated, and is a precious acquisition to 

 our stock. 



DIOSCOREA BATATAS. 



Mons. Chevet, chairman of the committee on this subject, 

 reports : The cultivation of tliis tuber in our market gardens, is 

 sure, both on account of its abundant crop and excellent quality. 

 Its culture is easy, requires but little care, its hardihood proved, 

 keeps perfectly in the earth, no cold hurts it. It is very readily 

 multiplied by seed, little bulbs, cuttings. Sec. It should be planted 

 in rows, from forty to fifty centimetres apart, (sixteen to twenty 

 inches apart.) I have demonstrated the excellency of this tuber 

 for our tables, for plain dishes or luxurious dishes. It cooks in 

 half the time required by the potato, in the pot, in the oven, or 

 under hot ashes. Tlie poor will profit more by it than the rich. 



