tremities; the last were nearly dry. "I am disposed," says M. Dobereiner, " to believe, that the diminution in the size of plants, as they rise into higher regions on mountains depends more on the diminution of pressure than of heat." Sugar for preserving Fish.Dr. M'Culloch, of Edinburgh, has ascertained that the antiseptic quality of sugar is sufficient to preserve fish in the most excellent condition. He states, that this substance is so active, that fish may be preserved in a dry state, and perfectly fresh, by means of sugar alone, and even with a very small quantity of it. He has thus kept salmon, whitings, and cod, for an indefinite length of time; and by this simple means fresh fish may be kept in that state some days, so as to be as good when boiled as when just caught. It is added, that "if dried and kept free from mouldiness, there seems no limit to their preservation; and they are much better in this way than when salted. The sugar gives no disagreeable taste. This process is particularly valuable in making what is called kippered salmon: and the fish preserved in this manner are far superior in quality and flavour to those which are salted or smoked. If desired, as much salt may be used as to give the taste that may be required; but this substance does not conduce to their preservation. In the preparation, it is barely necessary to open the fish and to apply the sugar to the muscular part, placing it in an horizontal position for two or three days, that this substance may penetrate. After this it may be dried; and it is only further necessary to wipe and ventilate it occasionally, to prevent mouldiness. A table spoonful of brown sugar is sufficient in this manner for a salmon of five or six pounds weight; and if salt is desired, a tea-spoonful or more may be added; saltpetre may be used instead, in the same proportion, if it is desired, to make the kipper hard.” AGRICULTURE AND BOTANY. On the destruction of Caterpillars for a few hours, to make it more on fruit trees.-In May last I (Mr. Sweet, Bristol,) found the gooseberry caterpillar had begun its usual ravages on the leaves of a quarter of gooseberries in my nursery near Bristol. In the last and former season, among many other applications which had been tried, in vain, lime had been used, but in a dry state. I resolved this year to try the effect of it in a different way a bushel of stone lime was therefore slacked, and covered up soft and fine; it was then sifted through a mason's sieve of the finest kind, which made it almost an impalpable powder. A man with a light garden-engine was then directed to play water in different directions among the leaves, so that every part of the plants was wet; another man followed closely with a coal-box full of the fine lime-powder, scattering it with his hand, so as to cause it to appear like smoke, and to spread itself on the under as well as the upper part of the leaves, so that not a single leaf was left untouched by it. In the course of the day I noticed, that, though some of the insects were still alive, they were much injured, and on the following day I could find none alive; some stragglers came on some time afterwards, but they were so few, that I did not think it worth while to apply the lime a second time. After the application the trees recovered their natural colour, and grew with their usual vigour. A day should be chosen for the operation when little wind is stirring, but particularly when there is no rain: I think the absence of sun, or a cloudy day, preferable for the operation. The earlier the remedy is applied after the insect is discovered, the better; and if it should be necessary to use it a second time, it must be done before the fruit changes colour, lest it be disfigured by the application of the lime. The lime need not to be thrown on thick, but should be well divided with the hand in casting it, so that every part of each leaf be touched. In small gardens, where no engine is kept, a watering-pot or syringe may be used, so as to wet every part of the tree. Encouraged by my success on the gooseberry bushes, I tried the lime against the black leech-like insect, or maggot, which is so destructive to thorns, pear, and cherry-trees; and found that wherever the lime touched the animals, if they were wet it destroyed them. It being difficult water high standard trees, I took the opportunity verv early in the morning before the dew was eva • It is the larva of a dipterous insect, or two-winged fly. porated, to apply the powder; slacking the lime over-night to have it ready. The powder was tried after a shower of rain, but rain following, the operation did not answer: where, however, these insects can be got at, they are more easily destroyed than those which infest the gooseberry bushes. Pear-trees against walls are often injured by these leech-like insects, but they can be watered and limed without difficulty. I have tried lime water thrown by the garden-engine, the lime being just slacked in the water making it warm: this answered tolerably well, but it required more lime, and rendered both the trees and the earth of the borders on which it fell unsightly. A decoction of elder-leaves mixed with soft soap was also applied: this had the effect of destroying the insects but the preparation is more expensive, and the operation more troublesome, than that with lime-powder-Trans. Horti. Society. Utility of Sparrows.—Mr. Bradly shews that a pair of sparrows, during the time they have their young to feed, destroy, on an average, every week, 3,360 caterpillars. This calculation he founds upon actual observation. He disried to the nest forty caterpillars covered that the two parents carin an hour. He supposed the sparrows to enter the nest only during twelve hours each day, which would cause a consumption of 480 caterpillars. This sum gives 3,360 caterpillars extirpated weekly from a garden. But the utility of these birds is not limited to this circumstance alone, for they likewise feed their young with butterflies and other winged insects, each of which, if not destroyed in this manner, would be the parents of hundreds of caterpillars. Gooseberries. The list of cultivated gooseberries includes 47 different sorts of the red gooseberry, 35 of the yellow, 53 of the green, and 44 of the white; of these, the weights of the best specimens are given. The largest red is the Top Sawyer, which weighed 26 dwts. 17 grains; the largest yellow is the Nelson's Waves, 21 dwts. 6 grains; the largest green is the Ocean, 26 dwts. 11 grains; and largest white, the Smiling Beauty, 22 dwts. 18 grains. royal botanic garden of Glasgow, there have been lately received, from the baron de Shack of Trinidad, along with a large collection of rare and valuable plants from that country, several excellent roots of the famous Arracacha. The valuable properties of this interesting vegetable were, we believe, wholly unknown to the inhabitants of the old world, until Mr. Vargas, a native of Santa Fe de Bogota, where this plant is indigenous, brought to England the Succory as blanched salad.-A information, which was publishvariety of this plant, improved by ed in the first volume of the cultivation, is much employed in Annals of Botany, by Konig and France. The young leaves are Syme. Mr. Vargas states, that the used in salad; and for procuring Arracacha is one among the most them, successive growings are kept useful of all the vegetables of that up in gardens. When the plant part of America. It belongs to is raised in fields, the outer leaves the order of umbelliferæ, and in its are plucked at different periods of habit resembles an Apium (thus summer and autumn, and given to bearing some analogy to the celery milch cows, by which it is said and parsley of Europe), and it is they afford about a third more milk in some parts of the country called than when fed on common fodder, Apio. Its stalk generally divides but it at first acquires a slightly from the upper part of the root sour taste butter is also more into several stems, thickly beset easily obtained from it. At the with large orbicular leaves, gashed approach of winter, the roots are into several sinuses, and supported dug up and laid in a cellar horizon- by large tubular leaf-stalks, exceedtally in alternate layers with sand ing a goose-quill in thickness. The or light soil, with their heads out- roots immediately divide into four termost and uncovered. In this or five branches; and each of these, situation they are kept excluded if the soil be light and the weather from frost and also from light, be favourable, will grow to the during which they afford the size, and nearly the shape, of a blanched roots called Barbe de Ca- large cow's horn. This root yields pucin, used as winter salad. The a food which is prepared in the roots are sometimes also put with kitchen in the same manner as po sand into barrels having numerous tatoes. It is extremely grateful holes in their sides, through which to the palate, more close than mealy the shoots very easily push, and it is so tender that it requires are cut off when required. Bar- little cooking, and so easy of direls thus prepared are sometimes gestion, that it is the common taken on board vessels about to practice in the country to give it sail, and afford fresh salad for many to convalescents and persons with weak stomachs, being thought of a much less flatulent nature than months. New Esculent Plant.In the potatoes. Of its fecula are made starch and a variety of pastry work; reduced to a pulp, this root enters into the composition of certain fer mented liquors, supposed to be very proper to restore the lost tone of the stomach. In the city of Santa Fe, and indeed in all places of this kingdom where they can obtain the Arracacha, they are of full as universal use as the potatoes are in England. The cultivation of the Arracacha requires a deep black mould, that will easily yield to the descent of its large vertical roots. The mode of propagating it is to cut the root into pieces, each having an eye or shoot, and to plant these in separate holes. After three or four months, the roots are of sufficient size and quantity to be used for culinary purposes; but if suffered to remain for six months in the ground, they will often acquire an immense size, without any detriment to their taste. The colour of the root is either white, yellow, or purple, but all are of the same quality. The most esteemed in Santa Fe are those of Hipacon, a village about ten leagues north of the capital. Like the potatoe, the Arracacha does not thrive in the hotter regions of the kingdom; for there the roots will not acquire any size, but throw up a greater number of stems; or, at best, they will be small and of indifferent flavour. In the countries which are there called temperate, being less hot than those at the foot of the Cordilleras, this vegetable is sometimes found to thrive, but never so well as in the elevated regions of those mountains, where the medium heat is between 58 and 60 deg. of Fahrenheit's scale. Here it is that these roots grow the most luxuriantly, and acquire the most delicious taste. By care and at VOL. LXV. tention in gradually inuring individuals of the Arracacha, or their seeds, to a cooler temperature, there is every reason to hope that this valuable root may, like the potatoe, (which was introduced to us from an equally warm country), be naturalized to our soil. It would The Maturation of Fruit.-M. Berard being convinced by a series of experiments, "that the loss of carbon was absolutely necessary for the maturation of unripe fruits, it appeared probable that they might be preserved for a long time unchanged, if they were confined in a medium in which they could not generate carbonic acid, particularly those which spontaneously ripen when gathered green. be sufficient for this purpose to confine them either in a vacuum, or in an atmosphere of carbonic acid, or any gas not containing oxygen. I found, however, upon trial, that green fruits, under these circumstances, give out a certain quantity of carbonic acid for the first two or three days, but not afterwards. On the 1st of October, I put a green, hard, sound pear under a small bell-glass, and exhausted the air by an air-pump. The next day the glass contained some carbonic acid, given out by the fruit, which I pumped out, and repeated this for four or five days successively, after which no more gas was generated. On the 15th of January following, I examined the pear. It had kept perfectly well, and was quite hard. I let it remain for five or six days in a room exposed to the air, during which it ripened, and was perfectly well tasted. At the same period, and with the same success, I succeeded in preserving another pear, which I had suspended in a jar filled with carbonic acid gas. These, U* for two days to the air, have turned out quite good. Pears and apples are, of all the fruits that I have tried, those that are the longest preserved in a medium deprived of oxygen. I have preserved pears in a vacuum from October to the following July, which remained quite sound, but had exchanged their agreeable flavour for the sour and unpleasant taste already described. But after three months enclosed in vacuo, and a few days subsequent exposure to the air, they remain quite good in every respect. May we not hence presume, that the fruits which ripen of themselves when severed from the tree, retain this quality in virtue of a certain degree of vegetable force which remains in them, and lies dormant for a time when they are immersed in a non-oxygenous medium, but which is lost in the end, when the power of maturation can no longer be recalled? My apparatus for enclosing fruits in a vacuum was the following:-I first put them into a jar, and closed it with a good cork, covered carefully with resinous cement, and having a very small hole bored through its centre with a red-hot knitting needle. This being done, I put the jar on the air-pump plate, and other similar experiments, gave me great hopes of being able to preserve fruits for a long time by the methods above mentioned, but they have not been entirely real ized. I have operated on cherries, gooseberries, apricots, plums, pears, and apples. I selected very sound fruits, within about a week to a fortnight of their natural term of ripening, and enclosed them in vacuo, others in carbonic acid, in hydrogen, or in azotic gas. All these fruits have been preserved for a certain time; but if the experiment has lasted too long, though they are still preserved from decay, they lose their fragrance and sweet taste, and they all acquire nearly the same flavour, which is peculiar, not easily described, and disagreeable. They also turn sour, and this is owing to the formation of malic acid alone. Cherries and apricots, long enclosed in jars, with out the presence of oxygen, sweat out in a few days a liquid of the colour of the fruit. If, they are withdrawn after twenty days, and then exposed for a day to the open air, they retain their agreeable taste; but I found a specimen of cherries, which I examined, after an enclosure of about five months, to retain their smell, indeed, and their proper colour a little weak-whelmed over it a glass receiver, ened, but to have lost their peculiar taste, and to have become acid, with that particular, unpleasant flavour which I have already mentioned. I have at this moment before me (December 25) a jar enclosing two peaches in azotic gas, which have remained in this situation since October 6; to appearance they would be thought just gathered, but they have lost their delicious perfume and flavour, whilst a similar sample, opened November 5, and then exposed fitted with a copper stem, which could be raised or sunk through an air-tight leather collar. When a vacuum was made in both jars, I pressed down upon the hole of the cork of the inner jar, the copper stem, which carried a small plug of wax at its extremity, and thus the cork was made air-tight by the wax-plug that was left in the hole. To fill the jar with carbonic acid or hydrogen gas, two holes were made in the cork, to receive two bent glass tubes, one |