322 Foreign Notices : — France, Italy. 



subject to heat, or to the pressure of highly elastic fluids, proved utterly 

 useless. THe various sorts of flange and thimble joints were found but little 

 better. The cement joints of the butt, mitre, and T forms, now so commonly 

 used by gas-fitters, are, under ordinary pressures, sound joints, and soon 

 made ; but, like all joints depending for their tightness on cements, which 

 must be applied in a hot state, they are unavoidably the cause of a good deal 

 of trouble, and of some cost, when one pipe, or any number of pipes, of a 

 series is required to be removed for repair or renewal, or for any purpose of 

 temporary convenience. In the right and left hand screw joint, introduced 

 by Mr. Perkins, mechanical pressure has been substituted with excellent 

 eiFect for the ordinary cements ; but this, too, is liable to the objection that 

 any pipe of a series thus jointed together cannot be removed or replaced 

 without great dfficulty. Mr. Perkins endeavoured to obviate this objection 

 by an improvement which he patented a year or two ago, though with but in- 

 different success. What was still left wanting, by all who had applied their 

 ingenuity to the subject, was, a mode of connexion at once perfectly tight 

 and easily dissolvable ; a sort of joint which could with equal readiness be 

 made and unmade, and in the unmaking thereof be attended with little trouble 

 and no expense. 



The improvements we speak of are variously modified as they relate to 

 cast-iron pipes, wrought-iron pipes, and soft-metal pipes ; but they have this 

 general and remarkable characteristic, that every pipe carries, as it were, its 

 own key, by which it can be made fast and unfast at pleasure ; the key, too, 

 so inseparable from the pipe that it can never be mislaid, and a key so simple 

 withal that it requires only to be turned round. {^Mech. Mag., Feb. 1 1. 

 1843-.) 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 



FRANCE. 



Grafting the Vine. — It is now becoming general, in this part of France, to 

 graft the vine in the vineyards. I employ a man for this purpose, who last 

 year grafted 4000 stocks. We have the best of grapes here, which in the 

 ripening season are eaten by every body in immense quantities. I have been 

 in the habit of forwarding contributions to periodical publications during the 

 last fifty years ; and, so far back as the year 1790, was a constant writer in the 

 Annals of Agriculture, and, even now that age has checked my activity, I employ 

 some hours every day at my writing-table. I have a small but productive 

 garden, in which I take my exercise and watch the cultivation of my vines and 

 roses with great pleasure. Every returning spring seems to bring new plea- 

 sures, and I am especially dehghted with the bulbous flowers, such as the 

 scillas and the wild tulips, which, with many others cultivated in gardens in 

 England, are indigenous in this neighbourhood. — E. IV. Blois, March 12. 

 1843. 



Camellias have been raised from seed in the open air in the Botanic Garden 

 at Avranches by M. Bataille, the curator of that establishment. M. Bataille 

 and his frienils appear to think that, by being raised in the open air, and allowed 

 to continue there without protection, the species will become acclimatised ; 

 but, though the individual plants will doubtless prove hardier than if they had 

 been brought up in a greenhouse, we doubt the possibility of increasing the 

 hardiness of the species. (See Journal d" Avranches, May 12. 1843.) 



ITALY. 



Monza, April 27. 1 843. — I have delayed hitherto from sending you the 

 remainder of my critiques on the different articles in your valuable periodical 



