What is the source of the vegetable matter conveyed to sterile soils, except the minute portion contained in the seeds wafted thither by winds or waves? a vast quantity has been produced, and is represented not only by the existing vegetation, but by the rich mould imparted to the soil by the decay of previous generations. The necessary materials exist in the air; plants possess the peculiar faculty of drawing them from the air; the air must have furnished the whole. If a bean be germinated on pounded flints or glass, and has attained all the development it is capable of under such circumstances, it will be found to weigh many times as much as the seed from which it sprang; a small portion only could be derived from the flints or glass; let its ashes, therefore, be deducted, and its carbon alone be taken into account. This element - which may have increased fifty or a hundred fold - can have been derived only from the carbonic acid brought to the plant by the rain-water and the air. Vegetable mould increases with the age of the forest, and the trees must draw from the air not only the carbon which their trunks contain, but the additional quantity which they impart to the soil in the annual fall of leaves. - A good writer in Blackwood, alluding to the paradox of the love of darkness manifested by some of the marine animals who congregate in oaves or under rocks, says: " Let us be ignorant! Let us acquiesce in mysteries (when we cannot penetrate them), nor vex with noisy questionings the. imperturbable reserve of nature, remembering the words of the poet, that 'fools rush in where gentlemen acquainted with zoology 'fear to tread.' " Describing the Brittle Star, he says: "You would never imagine how sensitive he is to an insult, Place but a finger on him, and he breaks up his dishonored body into fragments before your eyes.

He thinks no more • of throwing away his legs and arms than a young lord in London thinks of squandering his acres. Professor Forbes was ready to receive one with his bucket, and a gorgeous specimen came up. Whether the cold water was too much for him, or the sight of the bucket too terrific, in a moment he proceeded to dissolve his corporation, and in every mesh of the dredge his fragments were seen escaping. In despair, he grasped at the largest, and brought up the extremity of an arm with its terminating eye, the spinous eyelid of which opened and closed with something extremely like a wink of derision." - A correspondent of a London journal says; "Yon appear to think it likely that sulphur will be found a cure for the potato disease. I think the fact that the murrain does not attack potatoes grown in the Swansea copper smoke, much strengthens that opinion; for the copper smoke contains a large quantity of sulphur, although it contains other materials. Land at Swansea, near the copper works, which was formerly barren and useless, now lets, I am informed, at £8 per acre, for the purpose of growing potatoes.

I know that the ground in the neighborhood of the copper smoke is much valued for the purpose of growing potatoes, and that large quantities are cultivated there." - In reference to an article in a late number, a friend remarks; "It may not be uninteresting to observe that, in cases of famine, the roots (rhizomes) of ferns have, in former times, been employed for food. In the English Chronicle for 1377 to 1461, published by the Camden Society in 1855,1 find the following passage (p. 55):'And the nexte yeer aftir, the xil yeer of Kyng Harri, was the grete frost,' &c* * * * 'And the nexte yeer aftir began the grete derthe of corn in this land, the whiche endurld ii yeer, so that a bushelle of whete was sold for xld., and the poer peple in dyvers parties of the North cnntre eet breed maad of farn roses." - Thomas Bell, the Wakes, Selborne, - Almost all the stinging hairs of plants end in a little knob-shaped swelling, which is exceedingly brittle, and easily knocked off by a touch. The opened point, on being pressed against, exudes the secretions contained in the cells, and these are often poisonous.

The most dangerous of all is the Urtica urentisrima, called Devil's Leaf. The wounds of this plant give pain for years after, especially in damp weather, and occasionally death from lock-jaw is the result. Could this poison be separated and collected, it would be the most powerful vegetable poison known. - - The hyena-dog, from the South of Africa, is attracting attention abroad. There is no mane as in the hyenas, and the tail resembles that of some dogs; the head is hyena-like, and it has only four toes to each foot. Its color is reddish or yellowish-brown, variously mottled. It is swift, fierce, and active, and hunts in packs, at night by preference, but frequently in the day. - Anglers employ an infusion of the leaves or husks of English walnuts for pouring upon the earth, in order to procure worms, which it is said to bring speedily to the surface. - The receipts at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, are stated to be so insufficient that the Directors have been driven to the expedient of proposing to raise the large sum of twelve hundred and fifty thousand dollars - a measure which only extreme necessity could justify.

It is proposed to oonvert it into a grand picnic establishment; alas! - The process by which blood manure is made: Mix about two portions of bones, two of blood, and one of sulphuric acid together, and the result is a blood manure. Calcined bones are more easily acted on by the acid than fresh ones, and are therefore better for the purpose. The blood and bones are mixed together first, and then the acid is added. - What is the handsomest flowering hardy shrub for July? is answered by the Gardeners' Chronicle, by naming the Spine callosa, thus described: A shrub about four feet high, and as much in diameter, most gracefully branching from the ground; slender shoots of a dull red, and simple leaves Of a quiet green, such as the most fastidious artist would select for a contrast with brighter colors. Then let every branch burst out its spreading twigs loaded with tiny flowers, arranged like those of a Laurustinus, but more loosely; the youngest dull red, and as large as a pin; others, more grown, with a vivid crimson centre when the gay petals are preparing to burst their dingy calyx, and looking like rubies in a rusty setting.

More mature, the crimson petals begin to spread, and reveal their still more rosy centres; and at last the ring of crimson stamens gradually unfolds, and forms a glowing halo round the centre. This description is as accurate as beautiful. - - The clove is the unexpanded flower-bud of the Caryophyllus aromatious, and has been known in commerce for two thousand years. The plant is a native of the Moluccas, and other islands in the Chinese seas. A fine tree has been known to yield one hun-, dred and twenty-five pounds of this spice in a season; and as five thousand cloves only weigh one pound, there must at least have been six hundred and twenty-five thousand flowers upon this single tree. - - The Elder has been 'supposed by some to be the tree on which Judas hanged himself. According to others, it was a fig-tree. -It was formerly believed, in Scotland, that the dwarf birch is stunted in growth, because the rods were formed of it with which Christ was scourged. - In Holland, there are many orange-trees which have been in the same family two hundred and three hundred years; one, at Versailles, has the inscription, "Planted in 1421;" one at Rome, in the Convent of St. Sabina, is said to have been planted by St. Dominic in 1200. - - A gum-tree in Tasmania is stated to be two hundred and fifty feet high, with a diameter of thirty feet.

This is reputed to be the oldest tree in the world. - Some persons have kept toads for pets. Dr. Townson kept one he called "Musidora," to guard his dessert from flies. - Dogs in a state of nature, it is said, never bark; their barking is an acquired habit - an effort to speak, which he derives from his association with man. Columbus found the dogs which he had previously taken to America, had lost their propensity to barking. - Scale and red spider may be destroyed by the following solution: Four ounces of qniok-lime, and the same quantity of flowers of sulphur, boiled for a quarter of an hour in a gallon of water. This, when decanted, forms a clear, amber-colored solution; a single application to scale only is necessary, using a brush, and would require probably but a small admixture of water, if any. In the case of red spider, the solution, somewhat weakened, must be applied with a garden syringe, care being taken to reach the under part of the leaves as much as possible. It would discolor the paint of the house.