Foreign Notices : — France. 461 



' The Wood of the Thillyrea is, perhaps, next to box, the best for wood-en- 

 graving. I have used it for this purpose with entire success, with the advan- 

 tage that blocks of large size can be had of it, without joining. It works quite 

 as well as box; and, for hardness and durability in printing, seems to be but 

 little inferior. — Samuel Hassell. Littleton, near Somerton, August 1. 1837. 



Fibre of the Pine-apple Plant. — At an evening meeting at the Gallery of 

 Practical Science, M. F. B. Zincke explained the advantages that would be 

 derived from the use of the fibre obtained from the leaf of the pine-apple plant 

 in the textile fabrics of this country. The fineness and strength of the fibre 

 was shown by experiment, and specimens of it prepared, both plain and dyed 

 of various colours. M. Zincke also advocated its cultivation, as giving a new 

 value to West India property ; which, he said, was now suffering, and was 

 likely to suffer still more, from the dislike evinced by the emancipated negroes 

 to engage on any terms in the sugar cultivation. M. Zincke explained that 

 the cultivation of the pine-apple plant required but httle labour or expense ; 

 that it was but little affected by the casualties of weather, which so often prove 

 so detrimental to other crops; that the machinery necessary for preparino- the 

 fibre from the plant was of the simplest kind ; that every part of the process 

 could be managed either by Europeans or negroes ; and he calculated that it 

 might be delivered in England, exclusive of profit or duty, at 4d. per pound. 

 {AthencBum, June 17. 1 837.) The foregoing paragraph being copied into UEcho 

 du Monde Savant, a French periodical, has had its meaning quite altered, from 

 translating pine-apple plant by the term Coniferes. 



To render Fuci and Lichens edible. — The Royal Society of Arts for Scot- 

 land, among their prizes for 1837-8, have offered the silver medal, value five 

 sovereigns, " for a mode of depriving the mucilage of fuci and lichens of 

 its disagreeable taste and odour." (See Scotsman, August 9. 1837.) 



Plaiits rich in Potash can never be petrified. — Hence, only trees and shrubs 

 occur in a fossil state, and never herbaceous plants. Shrubs occur more rarely 

 than trees ; because, though they contain less potash than herbaceous plants, 

 yet, when calcined, they yield more than trees. {Goppert on Fossil Plants, and 

 on the Process'pf Petrifaction, as translated in Jameson's Jou7'nal, July 23, 1837.) 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 

 FRANCE. 



Paris, July 4. 1837. — I send you herewith a Monograph on the Genus Ca- 

 viellia, by my friend the Abbe Berleze, under secretary to the Horticultural 

 Society of Paris ; and I think you will agree with me, that tliis little work is 

 one of the best that has been published for guiding both amateurs and gar- 

 deners as to the choice and culture of that beautiful shrub. Secondly, I 

 send you three polemical letters of mine, relating to the encouragement given 

 in this country to agriculture. It was in consequence of these letters, and 

 another addressed to the king, and which was sent to the ministers, that the 

 Minister of Public Works decided on offering a prize for the best elementary 

 works on agriculture, for the use of children educated in the public schools 

 in the French provinces. I also send a chapter on the parterres in old French 

 gardens, extracted from an Encyclop)CEdia of Gardening, which some of my 

 friends and myself have undertaken to publish in France, in imitation of your 

 English one : but we are not here seconded, as you are, by the rich proprie- 

 tors. The taste for elegant horticulture is absolutely extinct in France ; and, 

 as a proof of this, there is not one single stove or green-house in or near 

 Paris that deserves the name, except those of M. Rothschild. There is no 

 knowledge here of the beautiful plants necessary to form the collection of an 

 amateur ; and to this is joined a parsimonious spirit, which thinks every thing 

 " too dear." The Parisians prefer using their fuel to cook palatable dishes, 

 rather than to keep rare plants ; and, when the price of any one of these 

 exceeds a crown, they will not even look at it. — Soulange-Bodin. 



