A horsechestnut tree in full flower has been not inaptly called a giant's nosegay, and by another a gigantic hyacinth. The manner in which it scatters its flowers on the grass, and the comparative uselessness of its timber and fruit, make it an excellent emblem of ostentation. . Its wood is recommended for water-pipes that are to be kept constantly under ground. In Turkey, the nuts are ground and mixed with horse food, especially when the horses are broken winded; in the natural state, goats, sheep, and deer are fond of them.

The flour is said to strengthen bookbinders' paste. - Various tests as to what constitutes civilization, have been thought of. By one historian it is said nations that coin money may be considered civilized; another that hospitals for the insane, which were found in Mexico at the conquest, give that character to a nation. A new one is proposed - that we call that State of the Union the most civilized which has the most pleasure carriages and pianos; Ohio will rank high, she has taxed 2,731 pianos the last year. Gentility was defined "keeping a gig;" in Ohio there was no fewer than 261,849 pleasure carriages and wagons, valued at $5,530,8631 Is it any wonder, 0! Ohio Farmer, from whom we derived the above, that butter is scarce? - Dioolesian gave the first example to the world of a resignation of supreme power and a throne. The amusements of letters and of devotion, which afford so many resources in solitude, were incapable of fixing his attention; but he had preserved, or at least soon recovered a taste for the most innocent as well as natural pleasures, and his leisure hours were employed in building, planting, and gardening.

He rejected a solicitation to resume the imperial purple, with a smile of pity, calmly observing, if he could show Maximian the cabbages he had planted with his own hands, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power. - The melancholy exhibited by some of our exchanges, in their appeals to their subscribers, is often very ludicrous. This demand for money may be readily cured by adopting the cash system, by which means the papers not wanted would end their long; agony in a much shorter time than heretofore. If a paper will not command payment in advance, it had better be given up. These remarks are suggested by the following leader from the Green Mountain (Maine) Farmer, which it is as well to put on record: "As we said before, we absolutely need money. We have between three and four hundred dollars due us, from those owing six months to a year. Now, friends, don't be bashful, but just send along the small amount due, and then you will have the enviable satisfaction of reflecting, when you sit in your snug, warm parlor, of a cold, chilly night, quietly perusing your paper, that he who labored to fill its columns for you, is not at the same time shivering over a cheerless fire, whose feeble blaze affords him the only light by which to glean news from his exchanges for the next paper; and also that his better half is not engaged in stuffing those old pantaloons more snugly into the clattering windows to break off the searching wind, or endeavoring to quiet the little ones who have been put to bed minus their cup of milk.

We say you will have the satisfaction of reflecting that this is not so. Won't this pay you for your trouble?" It makes one quite sad to think of this application of the "old pantaloons," in lieu of "rural art." - A law case of interest has lately been decided in England, in which a market gardener sought redress from a gas company for damages caused by the gases and soot evolved from the buildings. The plaintiff complained, and he and his witness proved that his fruit trees were destroyed or rendered unproductive, his hedges blackened and decayed; the branches of his trees were covered with soot, his annual crops were injured, and his trade seriously affected by the impossibility of bringing what few vegetables he could raise early into a state fit for sale. His scientific witnesses, one of whom was Prof. Way, proved that the leaves of his vegetables were covered with white spots, and those of his trees were shrivelled up; that the branches were so loaded with soat that it could scarcely be cleaned off, that their breathing pores were choked up, and their very tissue disorganised. Verdict for plaintiff. - Swans may become attached to mock representations of their mates. One of a pair of swans frequenting a pond died recently.

The owner not being able to get another swan, had a wooden one made, painted white and moored in the pond. The survivor took it at once as a companion, and never left its neighborhood. A visitor doubted the fact of the live one frequenting that part of the pond on this account, and the wooden swan was removed to the other side of the pond to try, when it was at once followed by the live one. By this contrivance the swan was always kept in the part of the pond which was visible from the windows. - The Himalayan Rhododendrons have found no fancier in America yet, but it may be hoped some one at the South will take the pains to introduce them, and we do not despair of some of these beautiful productions being hardy even here. They should be planted against perpendicular masses of rock facing the north, and most of them in damp and dark situations, screened from every wind; such being the conditions in which Dr. Hooker (in his Himalayan Journals) describes these plants as most luxuriant in their native habitats.

Such an arrangement has the further advantage of retarding their growth in the spring, for all are of an excitable nature, and therefore liable to be injured by late frosts. - Biddulph Grange, the English seat of James Bateman, would appear to be the best worth visiting of any improved place at this moment. A recent description in addition to much of interest, says: "By the margins of the rooky streamlet through the glen, a nice collection of half-aquatic and marsh plants is arranged, and some moist spots are specially provided for the many pleasing bog plants of Ireland and Wales. Here are various kinds of Reeds, Sedges, the Chinese Grass (Acorus Japonicus), the Pampas Grass, the New Zealand Flax, Bambesa Metake - a hardy and pretty Bamboo, the double-flowered Sagittaria, the Water Dock, the charming little bog-loving Pinguiculas, and a great number of other interesting plants, including some of the bolder forms of Fern, for which the shade and moisture are particularly suitable. Here, as elsewhere throughout the place, the greatest possible peculiarity of condition is introduced, not merely for the sake of additional variety, but to furnish a congenial abode for that wondrous multitude of curious or ornamental plants to which such circumstances are naturally incidental." - Desiccated or dried milk seems likely to become an article of commerce.

The powder is placed in bottles, and will keep in all climates and for any length of time. During the Crimean war, in the hospitals, etc., it was very useful. The French who make artificial diamonds so admirable, also counterfeit milk, which is made by putting a certain weight of bones with a little meat, with six times the weight of water, in Papin's digester. Being sealed hermetically, and raising the heat to 140° P., in forty minutes, from a stopcock, a white liquid comes out. It is nutritious, being a kind of broth, but has really none of the chemical properties of milk.

The poverty of iron among the Sarmatians, prompted their industry to invent a sort of cuirass, which was capable of resisting a sword or javelin, though it was formed only of horses' hoofs, cut into thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other in the manner of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an under garment of coarse linen. - In a very interesting report regarding the January storm, by Lieut. Bennet to Lieut. Maury, he makes the following startling statement: "Are you aware that at this season of the year the average number of shipwrecks is about one American vessel for every eight hours, and that the total value of the losses at sea for the month of January is set down at something like four millions of dollars?" - A toad or a frog placed in a cucumber frame will effectually relieve it from wood lice. He soon dispatches the whole brood. - Nasturtiums of different colors make a very showy bed; simply by driving down posts and nailing laths on them, these beautiful flowers will cover a large surface, and be perpetually gay. - A drying chamber is highly recommended abroad, for drying French beans, carrots, cabbages, onions and celery, by a current of air heated to 100º, by which, it is asserted, all the good qualities of those vegetables are perfectly preserved, and retain their peculiar flavors.

Sweet herbs, too, are saved immediately by this process. Bark for tanning, thus cured, is said to retain Its valuable qualities better than that dried in the open air. They begin, indeed, in England, to talk much of drying the grain crops in this way. - Bouchere's mode of preserving wood is much spoken of in the French journals. Soon after the tree is felled, a saw out is made in the centre, the tree is slightly raised under this, which partially opens the out which is tied up, the support withdrawn and the out is entirely closed. An auger hole is then bored obliquely into the saw cut, and a wooden tube inserted to which a flexible tube is attached, placed in connection with an elevated reservoir; the sap exudes, and its place is taken by the solution of sulphate of copper. The results mentioned are really wonderful, and the least esteemed woods, and therefore the cheapest, are precisely those which afford the best results. - A little rosin powdered and dusted over peas, Ac., when sown, effectually protects them from the depredations of birds, mice, and other vermin. - At Kew Gardens, in a glass case is a plant of Opuntia coccinellifera covered with the cochineal insect.

This has been an inhabitant of these gardens for these last forty years and more; it has, however, sometimes been nearly lost from those unacquainted with it clearing it off the plants, thinking it a pest which had no business there.

Flora's Dictionary, by Mrs. E. W. Wirt, widow of the late distinguished William Wirt.

This is an illustrated manual of the poetry of horticulture, and will greatly gratify those who would "Gather a wreath from the garden bowers, To tell the wish of their hearts in flowers".

It is intended as a presentation book. See advertisement. The venerable authoress deceased, a few weeks since, at Baltimore, at the advanced age of seventy-three.