AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 205 



tirely under ground (tlie root). It is a cylinder rounded at both ends, 

 with long slim single root. There is a variety of it of deep violet color. 



RHE17M NOBIL. 



Noble Khubarb, by Hooker, from Himalaya. It is a plant of extremely 

 singular growth. It grows wild on Sikkim, 12,000 or 15,000 feet high ; 

 the stalk about 40 inches high. The natives call it chuka — they eat it. It 

 has an agreeable acid taste. The growing plant forms a sort of cone. 



Mr. Bruce offered the following : 



DECAY IN FRUIT TREES. 



I have often heard the practice recommended of driving nails into decay- 

 ing fruit trees to restore their vigor, but I have never seen the result set 

 forth so strikingly as in a letter to the Southern Planter. A singular fiict 

 and one worthy of being recorded, was mentioned by Alexander Duke, of 

 Abbeville, South Carolina. He stated, whilst at a neighbor's his attention 

 vras called to a peach orchard, every tree in which had been totally de- 

 stroyed by the ravages of the worm, with the exception of three, and those 

 were the most thrifty and flourishing peach trees he ever saw. The only 

 cause of their superiority known to his host was an experiment made in 

 consequence of observing that those parts of worm-eaten timber into which 

 nails were driven were generally sound. 



When his trees were about a year old, he had selected three of them, 

 and driven a ten-penny nail through the body, as near the ground as pos- 

 sible. 



Whilst the balance of his orchard had gradually failed, and finally 

 yielded entirely to the ravages of the worms, these three, selected at ran- 

 dom, treated precisely in the same manner, with the exception of nailing, 

 had always been vigorous and healthy, furnishing him with the greatest 

 profusion of the most luscious fruit. 



It is supposed that the salt of iron afforded by the nail is offensive to 

 the worm, whilst it is harmless, or perhaps even beneficial to the tree. 



A chemical writer upon this subject says that the oxydation or rusting 

 of the iron by the sap evolves ammonia, which, as the sap rises will of 

 course impregnate every part of the foliage, and prove too severe a dose 

 for the delicate palate of intruding insects. 



This writer recommends driving half a dozen nails into the trunk. 

 Several experiments of this kind have resulted successfully. 



Hon. Charles F. Loosey, Consul General of Austria, presented leaves 

 from his country seat at Staten Island, struck by lightning, each leaf being 

 perfectly blasted from the apex nearly half way down each leaf, confined 

 at the sides exactly by the upper nerves of the leaves. 



The Secretary said it was believed that the leaf points are so many deli- 

 cate arrangements for the distribution of electricity. 



E. Merriam, of Brooklyn, presented some new gi'ass seeds. 



Extract from letter of Dr. A. McCall, dated Rome, Tenn., June 2, 1859 : 



" I enclose some few grass seed that grows on loamy, sandy, shaded, 



