The Horse Nettle. Solanum Caroliniense of Linnaeus, is one of the worst weeds in American agriculture. From Pennsylvania south to Florida and Texas it is regarded by cultivators as pernicious as the Canada thistle (Cnicus arvensis) is by Northern farmers. It has creeping, thread-like roots, penetrating deeply into the ground, from which arise annually numerous hard, twiggy stems to the height of about two feet, armed with numerous spreading prickles. The leaves are about five inches long, covered with stellate hair, on stalks about one inch long. The flowers are in racemes, opposite to, and as long or longer than the leaves; the pedicels about half an inch in length, and the potato-like flowers, purplish-white, succeeded by yellowish berries about the size of cherries. Every little piece of broken root makes a new plant, and hence hoeing or the ordinary methods of cultivating the soil, only aids in its rapid distribution. The writer has known some farms in Delaware to be wholly abandoned through having been wholly possessed by the Horse-nettle. Dr. Ezra Michener, in his "Manual of Weeds," styles it a " a terrible pest" in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and offers the opinion that "a law requiring that one who has allowed it to take possession of the land, should not be allowed thereafter to have the management of land, would be no more arbitrary, nor unjust than the quarantine laws for the physical health of our cities." The writer once knew a place where the plants had been introduced, and had spread considerably over an acre of ground during three years unobserved.

The owner was aware of the physiological law that even the most tenacious roots cannot live long without perfect leaves to provide nourishment for them, and employed a boy to loosen the earth about the plants and draw them out as soon as the leaves appeared. Though carefully drawn out, enough small pieces remained to make a new crop of plants just visible in a few weeks. These were again drawn out early as before. Three of these weedings were made during the season. Having had no perfect leaves there were but few plants the next season, and these were served as before. No plants appeared in succeeding years; they were thorougly eradicated. This is the only effective remedy, and not as costly as it might appear if timely persistency in it be employed. It is of little use in the arts. The juice of the berries has been found of service in tetanus; and Dr. F. Peyre Porcher, in " Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests," says that the negroes of South Catolina regard it of service as an aphrodisiac. Other species of Solanaceous plants are troublesome to the agriculturist, but none equal to this.

One, Solanum rostratum, a prickly annual of the great plains, is believed to be the species on which the " Colorado potato beetle " subsisted, until lines of communication were opened with these regions, when it found in the Potato a more abundant supply of food, resulting in an enormous increase of the insect, and, in many cases, a total loss of the Potato crop.