It was the boast of Luculius that he changed his climate with the birds of passage; but how often must he have felt that the master of many houses has no home.

If alchemy was an error, says the Westminster Review, "it bore a precious jewel on its head/' which has lighted men on the difficult path of discovery. By the very necessities of the case, it coerced the minds of men into studies repulsive and difficult - it forced them to create the Experimental Method - it forced them to become accurately acquainted with all substances, and it furnished'them with the means of elaborating a science, the marvels of which may fairly be said to surpass the wildest dreams of any alchemist. - If the introduction among us, says Punch, of horseflesh, as an artiole of food, is effected, it will probably become necessary, in ordering a steak at a chop-house, to tell the waiter whether you mean a rump-steak or a sweep steak! - Since the use of steamships in commerce, oranges have become an item of immense export from the Continent to England; 200 departures of steamvessels from one port yearly are on record, taking 200,000 boxes of 1000 oranges each. England imports 300 millions of oranges each year, of which 100 millions are consumed in the metropolis; 20 millions of lemons are also consumed, the principal vendors being of the Jewish persuasion.

Paris absorbed 4,906,320 oranges and 3,336,100 lemons in 1855.

There is a beauty which the Italian poplar possesses which is almost peculiar to it; and that is the waving line it forms when agitated by the wind. Most trees in these circumstances are but partially agitated; one side is at rest, while the other is in motion; but the Italian poplar waves in one single sweep from the top to the bottom, like an ostrich-feather on a lady's head. All the branches coincide with the motion, and the least blast makes an impression on it when other trees are at rest. - The substance which exudes from Juniperus communis is the gum sandarach of commerce. This is powdered, and is then known as pounce, an article formerly in much use to fill scratches made on paper when erasures were required. - The twigs and leaves of Yew, eaten in a yery small quantity, are certain death to horses and cows, but to deer, sheep and goats and birds they are innocuous. The leaves are fatal to the human species, though the berries are not; the Tew is propagated from the latter, sown as soon as they are ripe; or mixed with sand, and laid in a heap, to be turned over two or three times during winter, and in spring, the seeds from which the pulp will have rotted, are sown in beds of light loamy soil.

By either mode, a part of the plants will come up the first season, and the remainder in the following. - The oil of nutmegs is highly narcotic; the grated nut taken in too large quantities produces drowsiness, great stupor and insensibility, and on awakening, delirium. - The Clematis flourishes best when planted on a dry subsoil, in a mixture of peat and loam, and all the varieties may be freely increased by layering the shoots from July to Ootober. The generic name is from the Greek, selema, the climbing tendril of a vine, which this plant resembles in habit.

A machine for digging potatoes is in successful operation in Scotland and Ireland. It consists of the framework, coulter, share and mould-board of a common plough; by a pinion working into a wheel which acts as sole-plate in taking the weight of the plough, motion is given to a set of revolving forks placed so as to operate on the farrow slice just as it leaves the turn furrow. These forks fairly disintegrate the whole mass of earth as it is lifted, and scatter the potatoes it may contain over the surface of the ground on which the plough has already operated. - Lovers of plants begin to prefer graceful forms to mere spots of color, and this is considered as a satisfactory evidence of a great general advance in good taste.

Agriculture in France holds the first place in the production of national wealth; it employs 25 million hands, and produces in value, every year, upwards of 3600 millions of pounds. This immense mass of produce, in which Wheat figures to the amount of 56 million pounds is, nevertheless, not sufficient to prevent the country from going abroad to make up the necessary supply of grain. We have said, elsewhere, that good authority indicates the same thing as likely soon to occur in Ohio; if in France this is true, why should we doubt it in agricultural States here? - A proposal is on foot for a testimony to Mr. Mechi, of Tiptree Hall; England, who has done so much for agriculture. - - The advance of scienoe Is marked by the circumstance that in 1696 the Grand Duke of Gotha assembled a council of learned men to tell Mm what the bones of a fossil elephant were, and they unanimously declared they were sports of nature. The bones of a mastodon, found in Dauphiny, were exhibited in Paris by a surgeon, as the remains of a giant! - It has lately been a subject of discussion whether honey made from Rhododendron ponticum flowers is poisonous or not, and the belief is entertained that it is not, while that made from Azalea pontica is highly dangerous. - Dr. Lindley closes an article in a late Chronicle on grape-houses with the remark, "Blood, flesh, and all such substances make vines rank, difficult to ripen, and predisposed to mildew and any other disease." - C. F. Otto, late Director of the Royal Botanio Garden, at Berlin, to whom we were indebted for unbounded civilities in 1850, died in September last.

He was the author of five or six works on botany, forest culture, and on the cactus tribe, but was most distinguished as the editor of the periodical Allgemeine Gartenzeitung, in connection with Dr. Albert Dietrich, A genus among umbelliferous plants was named Ottoa in honor of him. - Too much stress is sometimes laid upon the necessity of having elegant apparatus for teaching science. A man who is eager to learn - who is determined to know his subject - may, if he be at all handy, or with the assistance of the village carpenter or blacksmith, extemporize his apparatus. Polished mahogany, and expensive brass work and complicated adjustments, are not at all essential. It is told of the celebrated philosopher, Dr. Wollaston, the inventor of the method of rendering platinum malleable, that when a continental chemist of some celebrity called on him and expressed a wish to be shown over the laboratories in which science had been enriched by so many important discoveries, the doctor took him into a little study, and pointing to an old tea-tray on the table, with a few watch-glasses, test-papers, a small balance, and a blow-pipe on it, said, " There is all the laboratory that I have." Again: is music any better for emanating from expensive rosewood or mahogany? - The prodigal son desired to eat of husks given to swine.

This is supposed to allude to the fruit of the locust-tree, part of the diet of the baptists in the desert. The ancients made wine of this locust, and gave the husks to pigs; being by no means a tasteless or unsatisfying offal, it might well be desired by the prodigal, in his hunger. - Jewish tradition considers the citron, and not the apple, to have been the fruit which our first parents tasted in Paradise.

When the dove sent out of the ark returned with a green olive leaf, it had remained, after ten months, green; this has puzzled some simple writers who did not reflect upon its nature; the leaves are of a bitter taste, and of a lasting substance, keeping a very long time. Cosmo de Medicis delighted most in his Apennine villa, because all that he commanded from its windows was exclusively his own. How unlike the wise Athenian, who, when he had a form to sell, directed the cryer to proclaim, as its beat recommendation, that it had a good neighborhood. - A few friends are all that a wise man would wish to assemble; " for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love".

Two New Varieties of Fruit are mentioned in the Gardener's Chronicle, as follows: "The first is a black grape, of most excellent quality, thin skinned, not a Muscat, earlier than the Black Hamburg, and having the valuable property of hanging late without shrivelling. Its leaves are middle-sized, thick, and capable of bearing even such a sun as we experienced last July, when the foliage of so many other vines suffered seriously. Its origin is unknown. In appearance, it somewhat resembles the Black Prince, but the flavor is much more delicate, and the berries are longer. The two diameters are as twenty to fourteen in this, but as seventeen to fourteen in the Black Prince, a very great difference. Mr. Riven, who has seen it, conjectures that it is some foreign variety allied to the Amelia or the Gros Sapert; but as this 1s very uncertain, the variety may be called the Trentham Black.

"The Melon, which will bear the name of the Trentham Cocoa-Nut, is much like that fruit in form and size, and is remarkable for combining a very thick, hard rind, with an abundant white, delicate flesh, like that of the Trentham Hybrid Persian. This being the case, it possesses great value as a keeper, or for travelling long distances. It is reported to be an abundant bearer, being hardy and robust in its growth. We understand it has been found still fit for table at Christmas".