Milch cows, in winter, should be kept in dry, moderately warm, but well ventilated quarters; be regularly fed and watered three times a day, salted twice or thrice a week, have clean beds, be curried daily, and in addition to their long provender, they should receive succulent food morning and evening.

THE ROSE AND ITS CULTURE.

The rose is "everybody's" flower. The ease with which it is grown makes it so; for it will live, as thousands of starved, deformed, sickly plants, put in the out-of-the-way room around the old farm-houses-choked by grass and overrun by weeds, and cropped off by cattle, fully testify. Its beauty makes it a favorite. Eyes whose perceptions are dull in discovering the tasty proportions of form and likeness of color in other flowers, sparkle forth its praises, even when its most perfect developments are seen in the miserable specimens whose parent branches have drawn their sustenance from the same exhausted soil for half a century-dwarfed down to comparative insignificance, and starved into disease. "As beautiful as a rose," has been a commonplace expression from the time to which our memory runneth not back, and it has been uttered with a dignity of expression which fully indicates the force of the comparison it is meant to establish.

It's fragrance justly entitles it to commendation When the gentle dews of evening drop their richness on its opening petals, it gives back to the stifled air odors rich in luxury and health. And the gentle breezes of morning waft its perfume to gladden and refresh all who inhale its pure and delicious sweets.

It has always been a wonder to us, as much as this plant is professedly admired, as numerous as its claims are, and as easy of cultivation as it is, that it has, by the mass of mankind, received no more attention. True, almost every country door-yard has a bush or two of some humble, unpretending variety, introduced, perhaps, by a female member of the family, who, on advice of "the lord of creation," a class far too apt to suppose that any embellishment to the homestead, beyond a plot of beans or a hill of potatoes, as frustrating the designs of Providence, or as coming directly in opposition to his own utilitarian views of things, has given it a location in a sterile and unfrequented corner, where, struggling with quack grass and pruned by ruminating animals, it struggles on in gloomy uncertainty betwixt life and death-doubting in spring whether its feeble energies can produce a bud or unfold it to a blossom. If it does give a stinted bloom, it is such a sad abortion, compared with what it would produce under favorable circumstances, that it is no wonder that the parent shrub, if it lives at all, lives on unambitious of future beauties and future sweets. Yet every one is loud in their praises of the rose -hailing its beauties with rapture from the first rich tints its opening bud discloses, inhaling its sweets with expanded lungs amid loud panegyrics to its worth, until the beautiful and perfect flower falls into decay.

A beautiful and perfect rose! Will it be charitable to suppose that three-fourths of the population of our country have never seen so rare and fascinating a flower? If they have, it must have

been at some floral exhibition, where they were too much occupied with the beautiful and wonderexciting things around them, where they gazed in extatic astonishment on things in general, without going into detail of rare and beautiful objects in particular. It is certain the ill-formed, half-starved objects we have alluded to, cannot belong to this class, and it cannot be supposed that more than one in ten of the landholders of this country are in possession of any other.

Now, although there are a large number of varieties of the rose, and many of them approach some other variety of the species so closely that it requires the eye of a connoisseur to trace the difference; and although all may be so cultivated as to become perfect in their variety, yet there are varieties which, constitutionally, will admit of greater perfections than the rest, under similar circumstances. These it should be the object of the cultivator to obtain. Although the first cost may be a trifle greater, they require no more ground and no more labor in cultivation than ordinary and inferior kinds, while one bush of the best will yield more satisfaction than half a dozen sickly, mean, almost good-for-nothing plants.

In its demands on cultivation, the rose is modest in proportion to the remunerative satisfaction it affords. It loves a deep loam; so if the soil is shallow, it should by all means be trenched. If straw or coarse manure is laid in the bottom of the trench, a benefit will be found from the continued lightness of soil it will afford, and by its drainage in taking off superfluous water in heavy storms. The soil round the roots should be kept light and free from weeds. Like all plants and animals, it should have a sufficient territory to occupy, and healthy aliment. To afford a desirable supply of food, rotten manure should be forked into the soil around the roots to give an abundant and healthful wood for next year's bloom. Mulching with leaves or coarse manure, after the ground is put in order for the season, is highly beneficial, as it preserves an equilibrium of cold and heat, dryness and moisture, essential to the health of the plant.

Its greatest enemy of the insect tribe that we know of, is the slug, which fastens on the under side of the leaf, and feasts upon its juices, until it is reduced to a skeleton, disfiguring the plant. The best remedy we know of for its ravages, is found in keeping the plant in good health, so as to insure a vigorous flow of nutritive sap and a firm growth of leaves and wood. With us it has succeeded admirably, and we commend it to all whose bushes are affected with a troublesome and wasting insect.

WHICH IS THE BEST GRASS FOR MEADOWS?

Mr. Editor,-Which, of all the grasses, is best for meadows? Is a mixture better than one kind? The custom here is to seed down with a mixture of clover, herdsgrass or timothy, and red-top.

The first season, the clover predominates; the second, the herdsgrass; but afterwards the redtop.

As the former dies out, the ground is left partially seeded. It is a well-settled opinion, that red-top is more valuable for hay than herdsgrass; and herdsgrass more valuable than clover.

It is my experience, that herdsgrass and redtop will produce more hay, even the first season, than if mixed with clover, and that red top is preferable to either. That red-top will produce more feed after mowing, and is far preferable for pastures. A horse of ordinary size has been known to eat about six tons of herdsgrass (without grain) in a year; though performing very little labor. Orchard grass deserves notice.

FRENCH MERINO SHEEP.

General R. Harmon, of Wheatland, Monroe county, recently returned from Vermont, with about thirty choice French Merino sheep, procured from S. W. Jewett, Esq. of Middlebury. They are all young and splendid animals, and were, with one or two exceptions, all selected from Mr. Jewett's importations from France, during the past season. One ram, ten and a half months old, with a very fine fleece on his back, weighs 166 lbs.

SCIENCE AND ART.

NIAGARA SUSPENSION BRIDGE.

THE Lockport Journal says that laborers are busily employed in pushing the Niagara Suspension Bridge to completion. In remarking on the structure, that paper says:—

"Imagine a span 800 feet in length forming a straight hollow beam 20 feet wide and about 18 feet deep, with top, bottom, and sides. There will be an upper floor to support the railroad and cars 58 feet wide between the railings, and suspended by two wire-cables, assisted by stays. The lower floor 19 feet wide and 15 feet high in the clear, is connected to the upper floor by vertical trusses. The cohesion of good iron wire, when properly united into cables or ropes, is found to be from 90,000 to 130,000 lbs per square inch, according to quality. The limestone used in constructing the towers will bear a pressure of 500 tons upon every square foot. The towers are 60 feet high, 15 feet square at the base, and 8 at the top. When this bridge is covered with a train of cars the whole length, it will sustain a pressure of not less than 405 tons. The speed is supposed to add 15 per cent to the pressure, equal to 61 tons. The weight of superstructure added, estimated at 782 tons, makes the total aggregate weight sustained 1,273 tons. Assuming 2,000 tons as the greatest tension to which the cables can be subjected, it is considered safe to allow five times the regular strength, and providing for a weight of 10,000 tons. For this 15,000 miles of wire are required. The number of wires in one cable is 8,000. The diameter of cable about 9 inches. The bridge, we believe, is the longest between the points of support of any in the world."

THE TREASURES OF OUR FORESTS.

The products of the forests embrace the most important items of Canadian exports, and from their bulky nature secure to us a greater amount of intercourse with Great Britain than all other articles of export or import collectively.

The relation which the products of the forest bear to other productions, in a commercial point

Hence it appears that the value of the products of the forest exported to Great Britain, has steadily increased during the last three years; the num bers indicating those values being in 1849, £670,914; in 1850, £741,901; in 1851, £854,658. It is thus seen at a glance that forest productions, exclusive of pot and pearl ashes, and the furs and skins of animals, are of the highest economic importance to us, and yet who, that is acquainted with the diversified trees of our forests, can fail to perceive that very extensive sources of revenue are neglected from ignorance of the value of many species of wood, which are especially adapted to the peculiar purposes of artificers in

Great Britain.

We are led to these remarks in consequence of the information respecting forest productions which the recent Exhibition of All Nations in London has brought to light.

Not less than one hundred and thirty varieties of British wood were exhibited at that magnificent exposition of industry. Among them, it may be well to mention, specimens of apple, pear, plum, and apricot trees were introduced, in consequence

by a combination of flowers and precious stones. The style of dressing the hair is much the same as it has been for some time past. The full bandeaux are still very general, and we observe that many ladies are wearing the hair at the back of the head lower than ever, so that the flowers or other ornaments employed in the head-dress, droop so low as to conceal part of the neck. A very pretty style of coiffure was worn by a young lady a few evenings ago. The front hair was arranged in full bandeaux, and across the upper part of her forehead there passed a torsade composed of hair and coral intermixed. The back hair was arranged in twists, also intermingled with coral, and fixed very low at the back of the head. This style is peculiarly well suited to dark hair.

The old fashion of wearing combs at the back of the head, which has been partially revived within the last two years, seems likely to meet with general favor this winter.

The attempts made by some of the Parisian couturières to revive the bygone mode of short waists has not been successful. The only novelty we have yet noticed in corsages, consists in the waists being straight instead of pointed. But even when the corsage is so made, the waist is of the usual length, and the difference in the form has probably been suggested only by the dress being composed of some transparent material, as gauze or tulle. With this style of corsage a waist-band, fastened in front, is indispensable. The burnous is the style which predominates among the new opera cloaks. The small cloaks of colored cashmere, lined and trimmed with a different color are, however, likely to continue in favor as wraps at evening parties and places of

amusement.

mon.

many ladies wear elegant little jackets, very much of the same form as the pelisses worn by the Turkish ladies. They are loose, that is to say not shaped to the figure, but cut straight at the back; the sleeves are slit open at the bend of the arm. These little jackets are thrown over a visiting dress, whether for dinner or evening, and they are worn until the room is rendered warm by the number of visitors. These jackets are made of white cashmere and are trimmed with ribbon woven in gold and silver, interwoven with Algerian colors. The ribbon is edged with a narrow fringe the same as the ribbon in materials and colors. Some of these jackets, of a less showy kind, are made of black cashmere and trimmed with gold embroidery, or a black ribbon figured with gold. This little garment is a charming fantasie, and it admits of as much elegance as may be desired. Its wide and easy form enables it to be worn over any dress however light or delicate. It will be found extremely convenient at the opera, when the cold renders it unsafe to sit with a low dress during a whole evening.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF COOKERY.*

To preserve, in dressing, the full nourishment of meats, and their properties of digestiveness, forms a most important part of the art of cooking; for these ends the object to be kept in mind is to retain as much as possible the juices of the meat, whether roast or boiled. This, in the case of boiling meat, is best done by placing it at once in briskly boiling water; the albumen on the surface and to some depth, is immediately coagu lated, and thus forms a kind of covering which neither allows the water to get into the meat, nor the meat juice into the water. The water should then be kept just under boiling until the meat be thoroughly done, which it will be when every part has been heated to about 165 degrees, the temperature at which the coloring matter of the blood coagulates or fixes; at 133 degrees the albumen sets, but the blood does not, and therefore the meat is red and raw.

The same rules apply to roasting; the meat should first be brought near enough to a bright fire to brown the outside, and then should be allowed to roast slowly.

Belonging to this question of waste and nour ishment, it is to be noted, that the almost everywhere-agreed-upon notion that soup, which sets into strong jelly, must be the most nutritious, is altogether a mistake. The soup sets because it contains the gelatine or glue of the sinews, flesh, and bones; but on this imagined richness alone it has, by recent experiments, been proved that no animal can live. The jelly of bones boiled into soup, can furnish only jelly for our bones; the jelly of sinew or calf's feet can form only sinew; neither flesh nor its juices set into a jelly. It is only by long boiling we obtain a soup that sets, but in a much less time we get all the nourishing properties that meat yields in soups which are no doubt useful in cases of recovery from illness when the portions of the system in which it occurs have been wasted, but in other cases, though easily enough digested; jelly is unwholesome, for it loads the blood with not only

Continued from page 576, vol. 1.