For the decoration of a stove or conservatory during summer and early autumn, we know of no more useful plants than Achimenes, and if carefully removed to a cool temperature as soon as the blossoms expand, and shaded during bright sunshine, they will remain longer in beauty than in a hot stove. About the beginning of February, put the tubers in pans filled with light, sandy soil, and place in a gentle heat, where they soon vegetate. After shoots are an inch long, they should be carefully removed, selected, and finally planted. Employ square baskets (eighteen inches by six inches), stuffed with sphagnum, the soil within composed of about equal parts of turfy loam, leaf-soil, and decomposed manure, with a liberal admixture of sharp silver sand. The moss being rolled tightly round the rim, keeps in its place by means of wire pegs, the whole being finished off with the shears. Insert the plants two inches apart, water, and remove to a pit with a light, moist atmosphere, where they grow freely. Stop at the second and fourth joints, to secure compact, bushy specimens; after the second stopping, then stake, and the outer row of plants peg close over the rim of the basket.

At same time, furnish with a top-dressing of thoroughly decomposed manure mixed with silver sand; after that, with the exception of being regularly tied, they receive the same treatment as before, until such time as they should flower, when they are removed to the conservatory, care being taken to prepare them for the change by rendering it gradual. When all are fully expanded, they will be a complete mass of blossom; in short, floral balls. All varieties are not alike adapted for growing in baskets, but longiflora and its varieties may be used with safety.

A grand National Rose Exhibition is to be held in London, this spring - the first of its kind. It will afford a fine opportunity for making a selection.

Lighting mines by gas is now practised in England, where its importance may be inferred from the fact that the estimated cost of oil and tallow burnt in the mines of Great Britain, is two millions and a half of dollars per annum. In one Cornish mine, the expense is thirty-five thousand dollars a year. Gas has been forced down the shaft by pressure - a depth of seven hundred and eighty feet - with entire success to the operation.