FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
259 
Jbrrign 2lgrtcultural ^cms. 
By the steamer Asia, we are in receipt of our foreign 
journals to the 5th of july. 
Markets. — Cotton was still lower. Provisions, 
Flour, and in fact most American products, the same. 
Siam for Wood Work of Stables .—Stockholm 
tar, heated, and applied wdth a brush, is a good stain 
and preservative for stalls and mangers. 
Potato Disease.— It is stated in the London Agricul¬ 
tural Gazette that the potato blight lias made its ap¬ 
pearance again in England. 
The I Vorld's Fair. —The present year, 1851, brings 
forth the great exhibition, the World’s Fair, to which 
millions are going, and where everything is expected 
to be seen, and the Royal Agricultural Society holds 
its annual show of live stock, in the Home Park, Wind¬ 
sor, to add to the attractions, 
Delightful Associations Connected with Gardening .— 
Probably there is po feeling in the human mind strong¬ 
er than the love of gardening. The prisoner would 
make a garden in his prison, and cultivate his solitary 
flower in the chink of a wall. The poor mechanic 
would string his scarlet bean from one side of his win¬ 
dow to the other, and watch it and tend it with un¬ 
ceasing interest. A holy duty it, is in foreign coun¬ 
tries to decorate the graves of the dead with flowers, 
and here, too, the resting place of those who have passed 
away from us would soon be gardens; and from that 
old time when the Lord walked in the garden in the 
cool of the evening, down to the day when a poet 
laureate sang— 
“Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, 
From yon blue heaven above us bent, 
The gardener Adam and his wife, 
Smile at the claims of long descent,” 
at all times, and in all ages, gardens were amongst the 
objects of the greatest interest with mankind.— C. 
Dickens. 
Farmyard Manures. —Mr. Finnie, who lately opened 
a discussion before the Highland and Agricultural So¬ 
ciety of Scotland, entered at great length into the best 
arrangement of a farm yard, the manure heap, and 
liquid-manure tank, best adapted for the collection and 
preservation of the shed and liquid manures. His 
principles, without entering into details, may be de¬ 
scribed as endeavoring as far as possible to collect the 
liquid separate from the solid excreta. The latter, he 
would interstratify with peat, where it can be had, or 
failing that, with soil or clay. Over the heap, he ladles 
the liquid manure, so as to allow as much as possible 
to be absorbed, and collect in the liquid-manure tank 
only that which cannot be obtained. Mr. Finnie, with 
full knowledge of the beneficial results obtained from 
the application of liquid manure, is of the opinion, that 
it will, generally speaking, be much more economical 
to apply manure in the solid than in the liquid state.— 
Gardeners' Chronicle. 
Australian Guano .—Mr. Manning, of 251, High 
Holborn, transmitted to the council of the Royal Ag¬ 
ricultural Society of England, a bag of guano received 
from Egg Island, one of the group lying off and about 
Shark’s Bay, the most western point of Hew Holland, 
in south latitude 25°, and east longitude 118°. Mr. 
Manning stated that there were several other adjacent 
islands covered more or less with guano of a quality sup¬ 
posed to be, in some instances, superior to that on Egg 
Island. Rain, he said, scarcely ever fell on those 
islands, and in some places, the guano was found many 
feet deep.' Mr. Manning concluded his* statement by a 
detail of the steps that had been taken to bring about 
this first importation of Australian guano; and accom¬ 
panied it by a hope that the council would consider 
the subject of sufficient importance to request Professor 
Way, the consulting chemist of the society, to make an 
official analysis and report on the value of the guano 
in question. 
The following table by Professor Way shows the 
average composition of the ammoniacal guano of Peru, 
and the phosphatic guano of Saldanha Bay, as com¬ 
pared with that of the sample from Western Austra¬ 
lia:— 
Peruvian. 
Saldanha 
Bay. 
Western 
Australia. 
Moisture,. 
13.09 
22.14 
30.14 
Animal matter and salts of i 
52.61 
14.90 
14.75 
ammonia,.V 
Sand, &c.,. 
Earthy phosphates,. 
1.54 
1.62 
3.94 
24.12 
56.30 
42.14 
Alkaline salts,. 
8.64 
5.04 
9.03 
100.00 
100.00 
100.00 
Ammonia furnished by 100 ) 
17.41 
1.60 
0.75 
parts of each specimen,.. i 
It is plain that this specimen of the guano from West¬ 
ern Australia, cannot be satisfactorily compared in re¬ 
spect to composition, with one supplying more ammo¬ 
nia ; neither is it so rich in earthy phosphates as that 
of Saldanha Bay; and hence, is the poorest of all gu¬ 
anos offered in the market. 
Heat of Plants. —All living bodies have a tempera¬ 
ture peculiar to themselves; that is to say, they have 
a temperature different from, and independent of those 
that surround them. This temperature is intimately 
connected with their nature, and is modified according 
to the different conditions in which they may be. This 
necessary consequence of the successive changes wdiich 
organic matter undergoes during life, is in its turn one 
of the causes which preserve organised bodies, and by 
which animal and vegetable life are protected from de¬ 
struction or disolution, which external circumstances 
would not be long in producing. It is this peculiar 
temperature which permits animals to inhabit regions 
of the globe that on account of their cold would be un¬ 
inhabitable ; which allows the development of aquatic 
vegetables in frozen water; which defends trees 
against winter, and which in tropical regions, causes 
vegetables to withstand a temperature often too high 
for their organisation.— Hooker's Journal of Botany. 
