446 



Short Communications. 



Art. X. Short Communications. 



A CHEAP Mode qfmaJdng Hand Glasses for striking Cuttings, 

 ^c. — Now that glass is so dear, a substitute for blown hand 

 glasses is not valueless. Let the gardener provide himself 

 with a glazier's patent diamond, with which any one can cut, 

 and cut up any pieces of broken window glass into figures 

 appropriate in size and form for the sides of four or six 

 sided prisms, terminated by four or six sided pyramids, thus 

 (j%. 114.): — 



114 







When the pieces of glass are properly cut out (by a 

 wooden or card pattern), let him joint them together with 

 strips of tape about three eighths of an inch wide, made to 

 adhere to the glass with Indian-rubber varnish : they will be 

 found to form, when the tape is again varnished over, firm 

 and durable hand glasses, and may be made as much as 

 12 in. in diameter: a loop of wire may be passed loosely 

 through the top to lift them by. A winter's evening spent 

 in making them would save some expense, and, possibly, in 

 some instances, gain the advantages of hand glasses where 

 they could not be readily procured. I am, Sir, yours, &c. — 

 Bobert Mallet. 94. Capcl Street, Dublin, Dec. 15. 1832. 



The Earli/ Shore Potato prolijic in Tubers ; aiid its Tubers 

 are, occasionally, nery large. — Sii', A gardener in this town, 

 upon a rich bog earth, raised a most extraordinary crop of 

 the early shore potato, about the culture of which no par- 

 ticular pains were taken; they were ^^wgra/Zz/ of great size ; 

 but one was ascertained to weigh 4| lbs. Last year the same 

 gardener took up two roots of the same stock of potatoes ; 

 weighing respectively 2 stones 6 lbs., and 2 stones 1 lb. ; of 

 which one potato weighed 2^ lbs. Had not the man been a 

 good and old gardener, a market gardener, I should have 

 doubted the potatoes being early shore ; but they undoubtedly 

 were of that stock, and not very large originally ; the result 

 must have been owing to the bog earth (meadow land dug up 

 deep).— r. W. S. Woodbridge, March 14. 1833. 



