196 
editors’ table. 
(£ biters’ liable. 
Annual Address before the New-York State 
Agricultural Society, for 1849.—We are happy 
to announce to our readers that the distinguished 
agricultural chemist, lecturer, and author, Professor 
James F. W. Johnston, of England, has consented to 
deliver the annual address at the State Fair, to be 
held at Syracuse, in September next. Professor John¬ 
ston has, for many years, occupied the first position 
among the reliable teachers of modern scientific 
agriculture, and we shall hail his presence among us 
with the sincerest pleasure, not only from the benefit 
which American farmers may derive from intercourse 
with him, but from the enlarged views he may be 
enabled to acquire from the new multiplied phases 
in which his favorite agricultural researches will be 
presented to him. 
We understand he expects to remain in this country 
and Canada for a year, and we bespeak for him that 
attention which his own character and the objects he 
has in view, equally with the well-known hospitality 
of American agriculturists, will not fail to secure 
him. 
A Large Porker. —Mr. T. H. Botsford, of Middle- 
bury, Ohio, butchered, last season, a hog, seventeen 
months old^ that weighed, when alive 825 lbs., and 
780 lbs. after it was dressed, being a loss of less than 
5j per cent. 
Growth of Plants in Confined Air. —It is now 
well known that a plant flourishes as well or better 
when grown in soil in a transparent vessels^with the 
external air excluded, than when exposed toits influ¬ 
ence. Mr. Leeds, druggist, corner of Atlantic and 
Court streets, Brooklyn, has a monthly rose in a large 
glass jar, planted in the usual soil. This jar is her¬ 
metically sealed, and yet the plant has flourished, its 
leaves being of a healthy green, and it grows faster, 
and blossoms earlier, than any similar plant exposed 
to the atmosphere. It has been kept more than two 
years in this state, having been opened only twice to 
clean out the grass, which grows, also, more rapidly 
than from the pots exposed.— Mr. Partridge. 
Tea Grown in the United States Twenty 
Years ago. —Mr. J.„ W. Averill, of Plymouth, 
Michigan, in a communication in the “ Dollar News¬ 
paper,” says, that in “ about the year 1820, I had a 
plant come up in a bed in my garden, which I ascer¬ 
tained to be the tea plant, from which I procured six 
pounds of as good tea as ever came from China. For 
several years, I cultivated the bush, and made many 
experiments in the curing it, until it became a matter 
of notoriety. I finally moved from the place I then 
lived on, and withal removed the tea plant; and the 
consequence was, that it died. And now, if you can 
tell me the way to get hold of some of the seeds, I 
will undertake to propagate the plant to its utmost 
perfection.” 
The Quadrupeds of North America, by John 
James Audubon and Rev. John Bachman. New 
York : V. G. Audubon, 43 Beaver street. To be 
completed in 30 numbers, imperial octavo, at $1 
each. We have received the first number of this 
splendid work, containing five illustrations colored 
after nature. Only the smallest of our quadrupeds 
will be given of full size, the larger to be reduced to 
bring them within the compass of the page. Although 
the quadrupeds of North America have been partially 
illustrated and described by several authors, their full 
and accurate history has never yet been given. The 
work before us is undertaken by those whose names 
are a sufficient guarantee that it will be done with 
such thoroughness and accuracy, as to commend it to 
the lovers of science and nature wherever it may be 
read. We need scarcely add, that, to the gentlemen 
I above-named, we are indebted for the splendid work 
on the Ornithology of America, which has given a 
world-wide fame to these distinguished authors, and 
reflected so much credit on our native American 
genius. 
Bagley and Co.’s Gold Pens. —“ Blessed be the 
man who invented gold pens !” Elastic, cleanly, en¬ 
during, beautiful, and a never-failing friend to the 
writer. A good one will last a man’s life time, pro¬ 
perly taken care of. Page after page may be written 
rapidly, smoothly, up to volumes, without requiring 
mending or renewal. “ Blessed be the man,” said a 
certain knight of old, “ who invented sleep but we 
say, again, “ Blessed be the man who invented gold 
pens.” 
The Wool Grower and Magazine of Agricul¬ 
ture and Horticulture. —This is a new periodical, 
as we take it. being No. 2, volume 1, but the only 
specimen we have received, and this without names 
of editor, publisher, price, or period of issuing, we 
are left entirely to conjecture on the subject. It is 
dated Buffalo, May 1st, 1849, and we suppose is from 
our staunch, old, agricultural friend, T. C. Peters, 
Esq., as editor, proprietor, and publisher, for all of 
which we deem him entirely competent. If there 
happen to be a hiatus in some of the minor forms of 
a periodical—there is none in the matter of the work. 
It exhibits sound, practical, matters-of-fact senti¬ 
ments on one of the leading and most important 
branches of American industry. 
Mammoth Mules. —The Cincinnati papers spe4k 
of an exhibition there of two mules, which are the 
largest ever seen in that city. One, a black male, four 
years old, by Everett & Young’s jack, Mammoth, 
Montgomery county, Kentucky, is eighteen hands 
high. The other, the same age, a brown female, by 
John Scott’s jack, Franklin county, in the same state, 
is seventeen and a half hands high. The two were 
put on the scales together, and found to weigh 3,000 
pounds. The price demanded for them is $>200 each. 
Both raised by a Mr. Thomas, in Scott county, Ky. 
Accident to the Charter Oak. —We under¬ 
stand that the old Charter Oak, at Hartford, Ct., was 
set on fire a few weeks ago, by a cracker thrown 
into the hollow of the trunk by some reckless boys, 
which caused considerable injury to that much-rever¬ 
ed and national tree. 
Literary Habits of the Hog. —From the Trans¬ 
actions of the Worcester-County Agricultural Society, 
for 1848, we copy the following racy pun on swine 
The hog is exceedingly litterary in his habits. His 
works are published in large issues of 10 and 12mo., 
with an appendix at the end of each, interlarded with 
liberal quotations from Greece. Although he has 
dealt somewhat largely in stocks and banks and do¬ 
mestic produce, his property, like that of most pure¬ 
ly literary men, is his pen. Like the good and great, 
in all ages, he has his imitators and counterfeiters. 
His posthumous benefactions find their counterfeit¬ 
ers “ in linked sweetness long drawn out ” not only 
at Bologna, but in every other quarter of the world. 
It is said that some of the sweetest and rarest morsels 
imported into Eden, when Adam was making prepa¬ 
rations for housekeeping, were conferred upon 
Adam’s rib, which he spared for domestic use. So, 
by a singular coincidence, some of the sweetest com¬ 
binations of animal organization are conferred upon 
our friend’s spare rib. He is in some respects a peri¬ 
patetic philosopher, making all his discoveries in his 
rambles. He is no superficial searcher after truth. 
He skims not over the surface. He goes to the root 
of the matter. He takes things, not by guess, but 
knows. If he is not in favor of the “ free-soil move¬ 
ment,” he is of the free movement of the soil, and 
manifests his attachment to his principles by inces¬ 
sant labor in the cause. 
