who are very poor, and find it hard in cold cimates to secure fuel enough to keep themselves warm-the tight air-stove is perhaps the best thing for them under such circumstances, which can be introduced into their humble abode. But in such rooms as they are generally obliged to occupy, they suffer much less for the want of ventilation than those who live in houses where all the windows and doors are so nicely fitted, that the external air is entirely excluded. In many of the coal-stoves which have lately been introduced, the coal burns so slowly, that the carbonic acid gas, which is generated (being half as heavy again as the atmospheric air,) cannot ascend through the smoke-pipe and chimney-flue with the temperature which is generally maintained a few feet from the point of combustion. Dr. Ure, one of the most scientific writers of the day, says that "carbonic acid gas cannot ascend at the temperature of 250 deg. F." but regurgitates into the apartment through every pore of the stove, and poisons the atmosphere. "I have," says he, "recently performed some careful experiments upon this subject," and find that when the fuel is burning so slowly in the stove as not to heat the iron-surface above the 250th or 300th degree of Fahr., there is a constant deflux of carbonic acid gas from the ash-pit into the room. "I shall, (he says,) "be happy to afford occular demonstration of this fact to any incredulous votary of the pseudo-economical, anti-ventilating stoves now so much in vogue. There is no mode in which the health and life of a person can be placed in more insidious jeopardy than by sitting in a room with its chimney closed up with such a choke-damp-vomiting stove." "We could quote language and facts of a similar character from a great variety of the most reliable authors, but if we can induce any of our readers to observe the consequence in their own dwelling of these modern machines, we shall have gained more than by simply inducing them to peruse these opinions, however reliable they may be. In most of our churches, public halls, school-houses, court-rooms, places of public amusement, offices, stores, work-shops, &c., we meet in this section of the country, the same unwholesome atmosphere; and almost the only variety to be observed in the mode of heating the room is in the form of the stove. If you enter a public hotel, the first thing you meet in the office or bar-room (if in winter,) is a large box-stove. If you go to the dining-room, you meet the same thing again, with perhaps a hundred feet of smoke-pipe crossing the room at different points; and the offensive character of the atmosphere gives you a sense of fullness in the head, while perhaps a disposition to vertigo compels you to leave the public rooms and retire to the one allotted to you. Then you will probably find a neat little elegant gothic pattern red-hot by way of showing you a little variety, and if you are compelled to lower a window for your relief, and wake up at midnight with a severe cold, you may console yourself with the fact, that your beautiful little stove is of the latest and most approved fashion, and consumes less fuel than any one ever before invented. If you stop long in the place, and stay over the Sabbath, and have been properly educated, you will of course go to church, and it is your own fault if you do not find one of beautiful proportions, handsomely finished, and elegantly decorated. The stove will be larger than the one at your hotel, and one will be placed in each corner of this splendid edifice. The sexton will fire up as often as is necessary, and keep you perfectly warm. It is true the air may soon become very disagreeable, and the eloquent voice of the speaker sound dry and husky; if he cannot relieve it by moistening his vocal organs quite frequently with cold water, you may not be at all pleased with its tones, silvery and agreeable as they were at first. But do not blame him. He is suffering for the purpose of keeping the audience perfectly warm, and if you see a considerable proportion of the congregation asleep, particularly if the house is full, do not wonder at it, for the atmosphere has been so thoroughly dried and respired that there is not oxygen enough remaining to give them the ability of keeping awake. If now and then a delicate lady near you faints away, help her out as quick as possible into the fresh air. You need not send for a pitcher of fresh water to throw in her face. The pure unadulterated atmosphere is abundantly sufficient to restore the circulation, though she may suffer some time afterwards. This kind act being performed, you can return again to the church much invigorated. If after this experience you come to the conclusion that all these difficulties are caused by the use of a close stove, you need not mention it to others, for they have heard of it before. If your own house is warmed and ventilated according to modern notions, you may perhaps congratulate yourself in leaving the town. In the railroad cars, you expect to get into a different atmosphere, but as soon as you enter, you will only find a different pattern of stove made exsressly for railroads. The passengers may insist that every window shall be kept closed, and you have no alternative but to remain a victim to the foul pent up air which is so common under such circumstances, until you reach the end of your journey. "We have spoken thus freely of the use of the common box and tight-air stove, and did we not know from experience and observation, and were we not supported by the highest medical authority, and most unequivocal chemical tests, that the evils resulting from their general use far exceed any and all of our allusions, we should hesitate as to the propriety of attacking a system which is so universally adopted. We know that many persons have their houses so constructed, that it is difficult for them to make any change in this department of their domestic arrangements. But if we shall be successful in inducing those who have seen and felt the evil effects of heating their houses, without any reference to ventilation or the quality of the atmosphere they inhale at every breath, they will be the better prepared to appreciate the improvements which have lately been introduced. In some parts of the country, several attempts have been made to introduce a kind of stove which will warm a current of fresh air directly introduced from the outside. It is impossible to ventilate a room by drawing off the foul air without introducing a corresponding amount into the room from some source. If cold air be introduced for the purpose of ventilation, all the warmed air will pass off through the ventiduct, and the cold air remain. We need hardly say that, under such circumstances, it is impossible to make a room comfortable. To overcome this difficulty, a ventilating stove has lately been introduced in different parts of Europe and in some of the eastern towns of this country." The pamphlet is filled with suggestions and explanations relating to the best mode of ventilating and warming, much of which we have published in the "Country Houses”but which we trust will meet a wider circulation in this form. If a million of copies could be circulated in the United States, it would be an immense and incredible saving of health to the people at large. Bad air is a "slow poison." That is the trouble. People go on taking it into their lungs day after day, and night after night. They grow pale, their lungs suffer, the circulation is languid, they take colds readily; the chest, the stomach, the skin, become disordered, and a host of chronic diseases attack them. A little carbonic acid taken every day don't kill a man. It is almost a pity it did not! If a red-hot stove destroyed, instantly, one man in every town daily, for a week, there might be some salvation for the nation. If instead of fainting away in crowded and badly ventilated public assemblies, people occasionally died outright in convulsions, the authorities would take the matter in hand, and make it penal for the owners of such buildings to open them for public use without attending to the proper conditions for the preservation of health. When a thing is only a "slow poison," the age is too much in a hurry to attend to it. In such cases we must wake up the public lethargy by facts. And here is one of them. We have before us the History of the Dublin Lying-in Hospital. Some years ago, this building, erected in the common way, without the slightest regard to ventilation, was found to exhibit a great amount of mortality among the young children born there. In four successive years-healthy seasons too-out of 7,650 infants brought forth in the hospital, 2,244 died within the first fortnight after birth, of convulsions, or what the nurses call nine-days fits. These children foamed at the mouth; the jaws became firmly closed; the face swelled and assumed a purplish hue, as though they were choking. "This last circumstance suggested to the physician that a deficiency of wholesome air was connected with the great mortality." Air pipes were immediately contrived; the various rooms were well ventilated. What was the result? That in the three following years, out of 4,243 children born in that hospital, only 165 died. In the very same rooms, too, where, according to the old ratio, before the ventilation took place, the number of deaths to that number of children, would have been 1,632. To save the lives of more than 1,400 human beings in three years, by merely putting in a few pipes! Can any one say there is nothing in ventilation, after such facts as these? Foreign and Miscellaneous Notices. sanguinea; Elders; Spiræa læavigata, rosea, and ulmifolia; common Lilacs; Chamæ cerasus, Snowdrops, Snowberries, Service trees, Sweet Chestnuts, Pteleas, Poplars, especially the true sweet-scented suaveolens; Caragana, with which beautiful undulating hedges are made; the charming red-fruited Acer tataricum; Buckthorns, and particularly the one from Tartary, which constitutes a large part of the live hedges in the country; lastly, Cratægus purpurea, with its handsome foliage, far surpassing in color that of Cr. alba. The latter plant attracted my especial attention; its beauty, the rapidity of its growth, and other excellent qualities, enable the Russians to make live hedges, which we should very much like to see introduced into our own country. FOREIGN GARDEN GLEANINGS.-(ST. PE- | the country, such as Cornus mascula, alba and TERSBURGH.-FLORISTS.-Among the different florists of St. Petersburgh, M. Alwarch, a Ger. man, stands first. He cultivates nothing but those plants which are universally sought after in Russia, viz: good evergreen shrubs and bushes. These plants, which are brought into Russia in pots, are sold in large quantities to the nobility, who, in winter, and the commencement of the fine season, use them for the internal decoration of their houses. We may mention more especially Gardenia florida; Ixora coccinea and others; Lantana; Musa; Eschynanthus; Asclepias curassivica and Hoya carnosa; Echinum; Gesnera; all of which are cheaper in St. Petersburgh than in Paris. Such is not the case with the hundred-leaved, crested, four-seasons, and Belladonna Roses, which, when in flower, fetch 2s. 6d. and 5s. The Myr. tle-leaved and Chinese Orange trees are also very dear, as are also Pelargoniums and Fuchsias. Franciscea odorata, and Hopeana, are great favorites; Begonias and Gloxinias cost half as much again as they do in France. Camellias and North American Azaleas fetch most extravagant prices. The same gentleman has a large collection of Rhododer dron ponticum maximum, and other species; but we look in vain for out-door Azaleas, Calceolarias, from Chili, or Cacti from Tropical America. As for Myrtles, Pomegranates, Laurels, Jasmines, climbing Roses, Dahlias, Pinks, and Spanish Jasmines, they are rare and costly. Besides evergreen shrubs, M. Alwarch culti vates, though upon a smaller scale, out-door shrubs. We principally noticed some bushy plants, capable of resisting the severe frosts of FLOWER MARKETS.-One of the first things which strikes a stranger entering St. Petersburgh, is the evident passion which all the inhabitants, rich and poor, old and young, have for flowers. The eye admires, with surprise and delight, the halls and rooms of all classes, which, for eight or nine months in the year, are more like conservatories than the interior of common dwelling-houses; being gay with plants of every clime, whilst out of doors the country is desolated by the severity of the cold. In-doors we find Palms and Figs, Musas, Dracenas, Marantas, the large leaved Arums, Camellias, Rhododendrons and Azaleas; also some beautiful Leguminosa, Mimosas, Cytisus in pots, Myrtles of all sorts, Olea fragrans, the large Clethra, different sorts of Laurel; and lastly, but most conspicuous, are the hundred-leaved and four season Roses, Hyacinths, and other flowering | plants. The working classes, who cannot command a wide range of temperature, prefer such plants as Crinum, Maranta, Hoya carnosa, Asclepias curassavica, and Lantana; Oranges, Jasmines, Plumbago capensis, Ixora, Laurel, Cytisus and Olea fragrans. The poor, who are compelled to live continually in the town, grow Pelargoniums, Roses, Verbenas, Fuchsias, Wallflowers; and, in spring, Lilies of the Valley. FLOWER TRADE IN ST. PETERSBURGH.A fair, which is held as soon as the frosts are over, and which lasts a whole month, viz: from the 25th of May, to the 25th of June, is almost exclusively a flower fair; it is at this fair that the nobility and country gentlemen make their purchases for decorating their country houses, to which they are about to retreat. The flowers are supplied almost entirely from Germany. We remarked the hundred-leaved and four-seasons Rose, planted in a sort of hamper; Cherry, Apple, Plum, Service, and Sweet Chestnut trees, a few Pear trees, all shrubs, and selling for double what they do in Paris; the Lilies of the Valley, especially, seemed to bear a most exorbitant price. We saw, too, Pæonies, and all sorts of perennial and shrub-like plants. Flowers are sold, too, by travellers, who go from house to house, carrying upon their heads boards upon which the flowers in pots are closely packed. But these pedlars offer their pur. chasers neither variety nor beauty, a few Wallflowers, Pelargoniums, Fuchsias, Lilies, Echium. Gesneras, Roses, Mignonette, Cinerarias, Verbenas, Phlox, and Justicia, form the whole of their collection. Although there are many more florists in St. Petersburgh than in Paris, the collections of the former are much more meagre than those of the latter. Their trade in bouquets, and flowers in pots, is prodigious, far surpassing what we had imagined.-Masson's Report. dish, is used only for purposes of fuel, or the coarse construction of log-cabins. As an orna. mental tree for the south of Europe or the warmer States of the Union, we may recommend this species. It forms a roundish summit, and spreads but little till it attains a considerable age. As a hedge it would form a very close shelter, and the leaves, evergreen and nearly as prickly as a Holly, would render it almost impervious to most animals. The leaves vary from roundish ovate to elliptic, and are of a thick rigid consistence; the serratures are quite sharp; the young shoots are covered more or less with stellate hairs, and for some time tufts of this kind of down remain on the under side of the midrib of the leaves, which are, however, at length perfectly smooth, and of a dark-green above, often tinged with brownish yellow beneath. The staminiferous flowers are very abundant, and rather conspicuous; the racemes the length of three or four inches; the flowers with a conspicuous calyx and eight or ten stamens; the female or fruit-bearing flowers are usually in pairs in the axils, or juncture of the leaf with the stem, and sessile, or without stalks. The cup of the acorn is hemispherical, and furnished with loose brownish scales; the acorn, much longer than the cup, is ovate and pointed. We do not recollect to have seen this tree properly associated with any other, except occasionally the Platanus racemosa; their shade is hostile to almost every kind of under-growth. By Persoon this species is said to have been found on the eastern coast of North America, while Pursh attributes it to the north-west coast, about Nootka Sound. It does not, however, extend even to the territory of Oregon, as far as my observation goes." Nee says, "I have only seen branches collected at Monterey and Nootka. The leaves of the young plants are perfectly smooth when first developed, of a thin consistence, with numerous sharp dentures beneath; they are of a brownish yellow color, and appear smooth and shining." The long narrow acorns, almost conical, are a remarkable feature in the species. Journal of the Horticultural Society, vol. vi., p. 157. QUERCUS AGRIFOLIA, A HARDY EVERGREEN OAK FROM CALIFORNIA.-A few miserable living plants of this species were sent home by Hartweg from California, and are now begin. ARTIFICAL BREEDING OF FISH.-As the ning to grow in the Society's Garden. It will amusement of fly-fishing is one which holds a probably be a hardy evergreen tree, concern. first place in the opinion of every one who uning which Nuttall, who knew it in its native derstands it; and as the trout and the salmon country, has the following remarks:-" This are the only fish which afford genuine sport to species, almost the only one which attains the the angler; and as I believe that the latter, in magnitude of a tree in Upper California, is the southern counties of England, is nearly exabundantly dispersed over the plain on which, tinct, whilst the former is there far from being St. Barbara is situated, and, being evergreen, abundant; I wish to call the attention of such forms a conspicuous and predominant feature of your readers as are possessed by the true in the vegetation of this remote and singular piscatorial furor, to the facility with which part of the western world. It appears more these fish can be bred artificially; and as many sparingly around Monterey, and scarcely ex. experiments have been made by my directions, tends on the north as far as the line of the Ore- and I have witnessed the results, I beg to say gon territory. It attains the height of about that there is no fear of success, if due care is 40 or 50 feet, with a diameter rarely exceeding taken. The experiments of Sharr. Agassiz, 18 inches; the bark is nearly as rough as in the &c., have proved that fish can be bred artificial. Red Oak. The wood, hard and brittle and red-ly (the experiments of Boccius I have not yet tried, although he professes to arrive at the same results in another manner); and acting on the plan recommended by them, I have known both trout and salmon bred by thousands for the last 10 years; and as now is the time for the experiments to be made, I hope that those who intend to try the plan will lose no time in looking after their supply of breeding fish. To begin with trout: catch as many as you can conveniently obtain upon the spawing beds and examine them carefully one by one, to see that the spawn and milt are in a fit state for exclusion, and also to enable you to separate the males from the females. If they are in a fit state to be operated upon, which may be known by the facility with which the milt and the roe run from them, on a slight pressure, squeeze the milt of the males into a little water. When you have obtained all the milt you can get, add so much water that the mixture remains slightly opalescent; say about equal in color to a table-spoonful of milk mixed in a quart of water. Pour this into a deep dish or bowl, large enough to hold the largest of your female trouts. Take one of these, put it into the water so prepared, and gently squeeze the roe from it, whilst overhead in the water. Do this as quickly as possible and return the fish into fresh water, and then pour off the water containing the impregnated roe. through a strainer, carefully preserving it for the remaining fish, and immediately return the roe into fresh spring or brook water. Repeat the operation for every female trout, and you will then have a quantity of impregnated roe, which, if properly managed, will hatch with great certainty. Have ready as many boxes as you are able to stock with spawn, made 3 feet long, 2 feet broad, and 6 inches deep; fill them two inches deep with river sand, so well washed that there is not a particle of mud left in it, and upon that put two inches of gravel, also exceedingly well washed, and varying in size from a hazel nut to a pigeon's or pullet's egg. These boxes must be so placed that the water from a spring will run into the first, and from the surface of that into the second. &c.; and below the whole nest of boxes, there ought to be a small reservoir made, say three yards by two ditto, and 18 inches deep, and well gravelled at the bottom; all these things having been previously arranged, and the water flowing nicely over the gravel, sprinkle the impregnated roe equally over the surface of the gravel, say a * I have frequently found, when catching trout for this purpose, that the milt and roe were not ready for emission. When this was the case. I enclosed the fish in a wire cage, which I immersed in water, examining them every week, until I found they were ready for the experiment. I fancy that if the ova come in contact with the air on emission, that they are not so readily impregnated as if they are kept covered with the water until the impregnation has taken place, and therefore I wish to lay some stress on the desirableness of thus keeping the air exc'nded. The milt remains in an active state long after emis sion, but I have great reason to suppose that this is by no means the case with the roe. quarter of a pint to each box, and it will roll down the interstices of the gravel, and find a bed in which it will remain snugly until the spring, then, about March, if all has been properly managed, you will find, on a careful examination, that the young trouts are coming to life by hundreds. I am very particular in recommending a spring, rather than a brook, for several reasons; in the first place, brooks are liable to be flooded, and are sometimes so overcharged with sand, mud, &c., that the gravel in the spawning boxes is completely choked with it, and the spawn is lost, as I know to my great and frequent disappointment; at other times all is washed away together. In the second place, the gravel of brooks swarms with water-lice, and the larvæ of aquatic flies, as well as bullheads and loaches, all of which prey upon the spawn of both the trout and the salmon; and in the third place, if you place your spawning-boxes in a brook, it is difficult to prevent the escape of the fry when hatched, and you are left in doubt as to the success of your experiment; with a spring all these inconveniences are obviated, but if your water-course should contain water-lice or aquatic larvæ, it is a very easy matter to destroy them before putting in your boxes, with a little quicklime. It is also desirable to cover your spawning boxes with a wire grating, and also to protect them in severe weather from the chance of being frozen. When they begin to hatch,open a communication between the boxes and the little reservoir below, and if this communicates with a water course,in which aquatic plants are grow. ing, so much the better; the fry as soon as they are strong enough, will make their way into this ditch, and will find an abundance of food among the water plants; from thence they ought to be able to make their way into the brook, river or lake, which it is intended to store with them; but all ducks, wild and tame, should be driven from this ditch, or there will be few trouts allowed to find their final place of destination. The above rules, with some modifications, are applicable to the breeding of salmon as well as trent, the only difference being in the mode of placing the female fish. The salmon is too large a fish to put into the vessel in which the diluted milt is placed; but I think it desirable that she should be held by an assistant in such a manner that the tail and lower part of the body, up to the vent, are immersed in the water con taining the milt; it is also very necessary to hold her firmly, otherwise a large fish, in the struggles it makes to get free, is apt to upset the vessel containing the milt, and then the experiment is at an end; at least for a time; being held firmly by the assistant as above, the belly of the fish must be gently pressed by the hands, to promote the emission of the spawn, which on emission must be gently stirred in the water, to bring every grain of it into contact with the milt; but do not allow it to remain longer in that liquor than a minute, as I have found that if the diluted milt is too strong, or if the ova |