have ceased to grow larger, if the state of the weather would have permitted; and the autumn of 1868 was so excessively wet, that some St. Germain pears, which grew on the South wall in the same garden, were wholly without richness of flavour. The new pear very much resembled the St. Germain, in the form of the eye and stalk; and the almost perfectly spherical shape is that which might have been anticipated from the forms of its parents. It will probably acquire a very large size under favourable circumstances; but removing from my late residence at Elton, I have been under the necessity of again transplanting the tree, and therefore I cannot expect to see its fruit in any degree of perfection till the year 1811. I have subsequently attempted to form other new varieties by introducing the pollen of the Beurrée, the Beurrée, the Crassane and St. Germain pears into the prepared blossoms of the autumn Bergamot, the Swans' egg, and Aston town pears; but I have not yet seen the result of the experiments. The leaves and habits of some of the young plants af ford, however, very favourable in dications of the future produce. In the preceding experiments I have always chosen to propagate from the seeds of such varieties as are sufficiently hardy to bear and ripen their fruit, even in unfavourable seasons and situations, without the protection of a wall; because, in many experiments I have made with the view of ascertaining the comparative influence of the male and female parents on their offspring, I have observed in fruits, with few exceptions, a strong prevalence of the constitution and habits of the female parent; and, consistently with this position, the new pear I have des cribed grew very freely in an unfavourable season, and in a climate in which the St. Germain pear, when its blossoms do not perish in the spring, will not grow at all without the protection and reflected heat of a wall. I would therefore recominend every person who is disposed to engage in the same pursuit, to employ the pol len only of such pears St. Germain, the D'Auche, the Virgoleuse, the Bezi, the Chaumontel, the Colmar, or Bergamotte de Pasques, and the seeds of the more hardy autumnal and winter kinds. as the I would also recommend the trees from which the seeds are to be taken to be trained to a West wall in the warmer parts of England, and to a South wall in the colder, so that the fruit may attain a perfect, though late, ma turity. Every necessary precau tion must of course be taken to prevent the introduction of the pollen of any other variety, than that from which it is wished to propagate, into the prepared blos soms. a I shail take this opportunity of pointing out to the Horticultural Society the merits of a new variety of plum, (Goe's Golden Drop,) as a fruit for the dessert during winter, with which the public are sufliciently well acquainted. Hay ing suspended by their stalks, in a dry room, some fruit of this variety which had ripened on West wall in October, in the year 1808, it remained perfectly sound till the middle of December, when it was thought by my guests and myself to be not at all inferior, either in richness or flavour, to the green gage or drap d'or plum. I am informed by Mr. Whitley, of Old Brompton, from whom I received it, that it bears well on standard trees. with a thousand little worms. They issue out of him at every pore, and that animated robe covers him so On Animal Cotton, and the Insect which produces it. Some successful experiments have been made in America, and the West Indies, to preserve and increase the insect known there by the name of fly carrier, which produces an animal cotton, in many respects superior to vegetable cotton. An intelligent member of the American Philosophical Society, M. Baudry des Lozieres, has drawn up an interesting memoir on this cotton, and the insect which produces it. Every inhabitant of the West Indies," says this gentleman, "knows and dreads the greedy worm which devours their indigo and cassada plantations; it is called by some the cassada worm; by others, the flycarrier; and is produced, like the silk-worm, from eggs scattered by the mother after her metamorphosis into a whitish butterfly. The egg is hatched about the end of July, when the animal is decked with a robe of the most brilliant and variegated colours. In the month of August, when about to undergo its metamorphosis, it strips off its superb Jobe, and puts on one of a sea-green, which reflects all its various shades according to the different undulations of the animal, and the different accidents of light. This new decoration is the signal for its tortures. Immediately a swarm of ichneumon flies assail it, and drive their stings into the bottom of the wound that they have made. 66 Having performed this dreadful =operation, the flies disappear, and the patient remains for an hour in a motionless state, out of which it awakens to feed with great voracity. Then his size daily increases, till the time of his hatching of the ichneumon flies. The eggs deposited, are hatched at the same moment, and the cassanda is instantly covered entirely, that nothing can be perceived but the top of his head. As soon as the worms are hatched, and without quitting the spot where the eggs are, which they have broken through, they yield a liquid gum, which, by coining into contact with the air, is rendered slimy and solid. Each of these animalcula works himself a small cocoon, in the shape of an egg, in which he wraps himself, thus making, as it were, his own winding sheet. They seem to be born but to die. These millions of cocoon, all close to each other, and the formation of which has not taken two hours, form a white robe, and in this the cassada worm appears elegantly clothed. While they are thus decking him, he remains in a state of almost lethargic torpidity. "As soon as the covering is woven, and the little workmen, who have made it, have retired and hidden themselves in their cells, the worm endeavours to rid himself of his guests, and of the robe which contains them. He comes out of the inclosure, deprived of all his former beauty, in a state of decrepitude, exhausted, and threatened with approaching death. He shortly passes to the state of a chrysalis; and, after giving life to thousands of eggs, suddenly loses his own, leaving to the cultivator an advantage which may be so improved, as to more than compensate the ravages which he occasions. In about eight days, the little worms contained in the are metamorphosed into flies, having four wings. Their antennæ are long and vibrating; some have a tail, others do not show it; they feed upon small insects of the family of acarus, and evidently belong to the ichneumon tribe. The cotton-shell or wrapper is of a dazzling white, and as soon as the flies have quitted the cocoon, it be may used without any preparatory precaution; it is made up of the purest and finest cotton; there is no refuse, no inferior quality in it; every part is as fine and beautiful as can be imagined." M. D. Lozieres, the author of this memoir, urges the Americans to preserve and endeavour to increase the fly-carrier, in the same manner and for similar purposes that the breed of the silk-worm is encouraged. He declares, that he has frequently seen so abundant a harvest of the animal-cotton, that in the space of two hours, he could collect the quan tity of one hundred pints, French measure. Moreover, animal cotton is attended with none of the difficulties which occur in the preparation of vegetable cotton, and it requires less time and less trouble to procure it; and there seems to him no doubt that it will stand the competition with silk and with veget able cotton: these, when applied to wounds, serve only to inflame and envenom; but the animal cotton may be used as lint, without the smallest inconvenience. Philosophical Mag. Vol. 19. Rice an useful addition to Bread, in seasons of scarcity. The high price of flour at this early part of the season, and the probability of further rise, justify early precaution to economize the stock. The following hint is extracted from the public papers:— "As the article of bread is now a serious object in housekeeping, it may be an acceptable piece of information to the public to learn, that many families have adopted the use of rice in making bread, in the proportion of one-fourth. 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A SINGULAR cause has during try, although not perhaps in a de this month, engaged the courts gree equal either to its intrinsic, or of law, and agitated the whole coun- its consequential importance. We |