78 Introduction of Imphee and Sorghum. 
the injurious positions in which our bodies are kept. To 
give an insight into this I have prepared a table of some 
injurious positions. The first are some of the injurious 
positions as they are going on in the working classes, and 
some others as they are going on in the better classes — 
during the time of education. So the table is called “ Inju- 
rious positions to be avoided during growth and education.” 
It will give some notion of these bad positions.. For in- 
stance, how little girls having to nurse children, begin to get 
crooked before they are grown up ; besides this, they have 
to encounter the injurious action of a hard wooden busk 
in their stays. You can fancy what a bad effect would be 
produced by such an instrument upon the body in con- 
junction with the stooping posture necessary in nursing. 
Then, again, needlewomen have to work in low rooms, in 
a bent position, where there is no ventilation, and plenty 
of gas and people. 
(To be continued.) 
THE WAY IMPHEE AND SORGHUM WERE 
INTRODUCED. 
HE following interesting account of the introduction 
of Sorghum and Imphee into Europe is from the 
pen of J. H. Smith, Esq., of Quincy, Illinois :— 
Of the cane plants hitherto cultivated in the north there 
are two distinct kinds, though similar in their habits, cha- 
racteristics, and wants,—viz., the Chinese cane and the 
Imphee or African varieties. ‘The former is from the north 
of China, the latter from the south eastern coast of Africa. 
Only one kind of the Chinese cane is known to us. Its 
first introduction was made in France, and was briefly as 
follows :—Count d’Montigny, in the year 1851, and while 
he was the French consul at Shanghai, in China, in com- 
pliance with an official request, sent to the Geographical 
Society of Paris, a collection of plants and seeds which he 
found in China, and which he thought would succeed in ~ 
his own country, and among these this celebrated plant 
which we have in America. It strikes us at once as a 
curious instance of the manner in which momentous results 
often depend upon the slightest thread, when we consider 
that of the package sent sai the Count to Paris only one 
