NOTE AND COMMENT. 



Introduction of PoTATos.^Potatos, when first introduced 

 to Russia in 1769, and being known as " Devil's Apples," gave 

 rise to serious rioting. — Gardening World. 



Antidote for Ivy Poisoning. — According to Popular 

 Science News, Nature has provided a most efficient remedy for 

 poison-ivy poisoning, in the shape of the widely spread flower 

 known as spotted touch-me-not (Impatiens fulva). It is also 

 called the jewel-weed, and is very abundant in the water courses 

 during June and July, when the poison-ivy (RJuis toxicodendron) 

 ?nd the poison sumac (Rhus venenata) are most poisonous. The 

 remedy is applied by expressing the juices of the plant and ap- 

 plying it to the skin which has been poisoned. Who can say 

 whether there is any virtue in this remedy? 



Preparation of Cocoa. — The so-called cocoa-beans are 

 borne in melon-shaped pods on low trees, similar in appearance to 

 plum trees. Each pod contains a hundred or more ''beans" em- 

 bedded in a mucilaginous matter. At maturity the seeds are taken 

 from the pods and undergo a process of sweating to free them 

 from this mucilage — at least this is the modern way. A writer 

 in the Bulletin of the Botanical Department of Jamaica, however, 

 says that in Trinidad barefooted coolies walk over the drying 

 beans and in this way take up the mucilage. 



The Man-Eating Tree. — Much of what the magazines 

 are printing on out-of-door subjects, at present, falls under the 

 head of "Newspaper Science." which is well known to be no 

 science at all. Here is a good example from a recent number 

 of the Woman's Home Companion in regard to a most remark- 

 able man-eating tree : " There is no tree in the world so peculiar 

 or horrible as the man-eating tree of Madagascar. Shaped like 

 a pineapple, growing to the height of eight feet, from the top 

 hang down enormous leaves, while towering above are five or 

 six long white palpi, which bend and bow in the breezes like some 



