402 



Domestic Notices. — Eriffland. 



Add to these, if you please, a great improvement ; namely, to make each 

 end answer as the bottom, so that if a leg is broken off, it is only necessary 

 to turn the hurdle upside down, and we have \ 115 



still a perfect hurdle. Make the heads eighteen 

 inches or two feet longer than usual, and 

 sharpen both ends (Jig. 115.); then the side 

 pieces should be always double, one on each 

 side of the rails, and should shut in at their 

 ends on the heads and the centre piece, that 

 their bearings may be equally strong and firm 

 whichever end is uppermost. — Rusticus in Urhe. 



Wire-netting, fixed in Frames of different sizes, would be found extremely 

 useful to protect seeds or fruit on wall trees from birds. Netting made of 

 string is constantly breaking and rotting; the other, now and then painted, 

 would last for many years. — 7c?. 



Pears may be grafted on Stocks of the Mountain Ash and the Service Tree; 

 both of which will grow and thrive where pear tree stocks would not. I 

 have also seen apples grafted on quince stocks, and planted in a soil so wet 

 that an apple could not live; but they are doing very well, and making 

 exceedingly fine shoots. — Id. 



My Arracacha plant is flourishing beyond my most sanguine expectations 

 in the open air ; indeed, it grows much more luxuriantly in the open air 

 than in the house. The mean temperature of July here exceeds that of 

 July at Bogota by 1° 26' of Fahrenheit ; the mean temperature of the hottest 

 month here being 63° 50', according to Kirwan, and at Bogota only 62° 24', 

 according to Humboldt. — W. Hamilton. Plymouth, July 8. 



A Straivberry was gathered, on the 20th of June, from the garden of 

 Mr. Norris, Brentford End, which measured \5\ in. in circumference, and 

 weighed upwards of 3 oz. {Morning Herald.) 



Blue Hydrangeas are produced by planting them in a compost of bog 

 eai'th and turf-ashes, or ashes of the Norway spruce fir. {MS. Jour, of 

 Brist. Nurs. Lib.) 



Power of the Sim's Rays. — Mr. Mackintosh, contractor for the govern- 

 ment works at Stonehouse Point, Devon, had to descend in the diving bell 

 with workmen to lay the foundation of a sea wall. The machine is fitted 

 with convex glasses in the upper part, to seiTe the purpose of windows, 

 and Mr. Mackintosh states that, on several occasions in clear weather, he 

 has witnessed the sun's rays so concentrated by the circular windows, as to 

 burn the labourers' clothes when opposed to the focal point, and this not- 

 withstanding the machine was 25 ft. under the surface of the water ! {Ex- 

 tracted f-oni the MS. Joui'nal of the Bristol Nuj-sery Library.) 



The Plant-louse Lion. — The 7/emerdbius perla, in its larva state, is called 

 the plant-louse lion. The editor of the Technological Repository, having 

 noticed] small oval bodies raised on pedicles on the upper surface, and 

 attached to the edges, of leaves on which the eggs of the aphis were de- 

 posited, mentioned the circumstance to Mr. T. Carpenter (author of the 

 natural history of this insect), who knew them to be the eggs of the plant-, 

 louse lion ; and adds that the eggs are so disposed, in order to be out of 

 the way of the young aphides till they are hatched, when the lion ap- 

 proaches by the pedicle, and falls on its prey, by sucking the juice of the 

 aphis, leaving the skin empty. The appearance of those skins among the 

 aphides led some naturalists to suppose that they cast a slough. Mr. Car- 

 penter's observation, however, shows that these empty skins are not sloughs, 

 but the remains of the mui'dered aphides. {Tech. Rep., May, 1828.) 



Utility of Toads in Gardens. — Practical men have been long aware that 

 toads live chiefly on insects, particularly beetles ; some have even made it a 

 point to place them on their hot-beds, for the purpose of destroying wood- 

 lice, earwigs, &c. A correspondent, Mr. Reeve, who has Jong employed 



