General Notices. 281 



the whole well together on a sheet of paper, and then put it into a bottle, or 

 other convenient place, which must be kept very dry." By laying small 

 portions of the mixture in the runs of the insects near their nests every day 

 for a short period, an effectual clearance will soon be obtained. {Gard, Chron., 

 Jan. 16. p. 37.) 



Woodlice. — By the following very simple method, frames and pits might be 

 kept comparatively free from woodlice ; at any rate the insects might be so 

 far subdued by it as not to be injurious to plants. Put a cold boiled or 

 roasted potato into a small flower-pot, cover the potato with moss, leaving a 

 little hanging out of the pot, by way of enticing the insects to enter ; then lay 

 the pot on its side in a corner of the frame. Woodlice feed in darkness, and 

 at the approach of day they escape to their hiding places, in cracks and cre- 

 vices, or amongst the loose soil or bark ; the moss is, therefore, necessary to 

 induce them to remain in the pot, to which they will flock in hundreds after 

 having once tasted the potato. Every morning the pots should be taken out 

 of the pits and the insects destroyed; the same bait will serve for a week or 

 longer. If properly attended to, half a dozen pots so prepared will soon clear 

 a frame of this troublesome insect. {J. jB. Whiting, in Gard. Chron. March 6. 

 p. 150.) 



Mr. Greenes Cucumber Pit. — The construction of the pit is as follows : 

 the walls are built of 9-inch brickwork, 5 ft. in the back, and 2h in the front, 

 and 3 ft. wide in the clear, 36 ft. long, covered with nine lights, and divided 

 into three compartments. A trough of brickwork is carried along the bottom 

 from end to end in the centre ; this is constructed by first laying two bricks 

 thick, 1 ft. wide, and then forming the tv/o sides of the trough with bricks on 

 edge, the whole being so cemented as to hold water. The pit is heated 

 with hot water by means of a branch of 2i-inch pipes proceeding from the boiler 

 which heats a stove at a short distance. The hot water flows along the back 

 and front of the pit, but the return pipes are placed in the trough first de- 

 scribed, which is filled with water, or partly so, as circumstances may require, 

 by means of a small pipe that leads to the outside. Another small pipe is laid 

 in the bottom of the trough for letting off the stagnant water, and for emptying 

 it occasionally; for in very dark damp weather a drier heat is required. The 

 advantages gained by this pit, over anything that I have ever seen or heard 

 of, are : 1st, a great saving of labour and dung, which last at all times makes a 

 very littery and unsightly appearance ; 2d, the having a sufficient command 

 of heat in severe and changeable weather; and 3dly, the return-pipe, being 

 buried or partly buried in water, gives, when required, a sufficient bottom- 

 heat, and the constant vapour arising from it renders the plant so healthy and 

 strong that a good crop of fine fruit is certain. (Gard. Chron., Jan. 16. p. 36.) 



Agriculture, under the monopoly system, is a wholesale manufactory of high 

 rents and pauperism. That the i-epeal of the corn laws, which would 

 mitigate the pauperism, would also destroy the rent, is an illogical conclusion. 

 Tlu'iving trade, increasing towns, and railway communication, are surer and 

 more enduring raisers of rent than the strictest monopoly that can be con- 

 ceived ; and they enhance rent without the accompaniments of bitter 

 alienation, famishing families, destructive riots, midnight incendiarism, and the 

 curses of plundered poverty that ascend to heaven. (Mor7i. Chron., Jan. 12. 

 1841.) 



Moss on Gravel Walks. — A shaded gravel walk in Professor Henslow's 

 garden, at Cambridge, was always covered with a mat of moss, and became 

 perfectly green in the autumnal months. Mr. Henslovv' watered it in parallel 

 and transverse strips with solutions of dilierent salts, to see whether any of 

 them would destroy the moss, and prevent its growing again. Several ap- 

 peared to kill the moss, which, however, was replaced, inmost cases, in a very 

 short time. He notices " three of the solutions as having produced more 

 permanent effects ; these were, corrosive sublimate, sulphate of iron (green 

 vitriol), and sulphate of copper (blue vitriol). The first two seemed to kill 

 the moss immediately, but they also turned it black ; and at the expiration of 



