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stercoraceous and agrestick, as if I were inditing for the Farmer's Journal;-no, I shall endeavour, like Virgil, "to toss my dung about with an air of dignity," in which I have the better chance of succeeding, inasmuch as the material upon which I am about to dilate is no fat and filthy compost, but a curious and cleanly powder. Very few are probably aware that there is every year a considerable importation of bones from the Continent, which are crushed and used for manure; many an English farmer thus realizing towards his continental neighbours the well-known threat of the Giant to little Jack and his companions— "I'll grind their bones to make me bread," and affording at the same time a new and more striking illustration of that system of reproduction from old materials to which I have already alluded. Residing upon the eastern coast, and farming a considerable extent of country, I have made repeated and careful experiments with this manure; and as the mode of burial in many parts of the Continent divides the different classes into appropriated portions of the churchyard, I have been enabled, by a little bribery to sextons and charnel-house men, to obtain specimens of every rank and character, and to ascertain with precision their separate qualities and results for the purposes of the farmer, botanist, or common nurseryman. These it is my purpose to communicate to the reader, who may depend upon the caution with which the different tests were applied, as well as upon the fidelity with which they are reported.

A few cartloads of citizen's bones gave me a luxu

riant growth of London pride, plums, Sibthorpia or base money-wort, mud-wort, bladder-wort, and mushrooms; but for laburnum or golden chain I was obliged to select a lord mayor. Hospital bones supplied me with cyclamen in any quantity, which I intermixed with a few seeds from the Cyclades Islands, and the scurvy-grass came up spontaneously; while manure from different fields of battle proved extremely favourable to the hæmanthus or blood-flower, the trumpetflower and laurel, as well as to widow-wail and cypress. A few sample sculls from the poet's corner of a German abbey furnished poet's cassia, grass of Parnassus, and bays in about equal quantities, with wormwood, crab, thistle, stinging-nettle, prickly holly, teazel, and loose-strife. Courtiers and ministers, when converted into manure, secured an ample return of jackin-a-box, service-apples, climbers, supplejacks, parasite plants, and that species of sun-flower which invariably turns to the rising luminary. Nabobs form a capital compost for hepatica, liver-wort, spleen-wort, hips, and pine; and from those who had three or four stars at the India House I raised some particularly fine China asters. A good show of adonis, narcissus, jessamine, cockscomb, dandelion, monkey-flower, and buckthorn, may be obtained from dandies, although they are apt to encumber the ground with tickweed; while a good drilling with dandisettes is essential to those beds in which you wish to raise Venus's looking-glass, Venus's catchfly, columbines, and love-apples. A single dressing of jockies will ensure you a quick return of horsemint, veronica or speedwell, and colt's-foot; and a

very slight layer of critics suffices for a good thick spread of scorpion senna, viper's bugloss, serpent's tongue, poison-nut, nightshade, and hellebore. If you are fond of raising stocks, manure your beds with jobbers; wine-merchants form the most congenial stimulant for sloes, fortune-hunters for the marygold and golden-rod, and drunkards for Canary wines, mad-wort and horehound. Failing in repeated attempts to raise the chaste tree from the bones of nuns, which gave me nothing but liquorice-root, I applied those of a dairy-maid, and not only succeeded perfectly in my object, but obtained a good crop of butter-wort, milk-wort, and heart's ease. I was equally unsuccessful in raising any sage, honesty, or everlasting from monks; but they yielded a plentiful bed of monk's hood, jesuit's bark, medlars, and cardinal flowers. My importation of shoemakers was unfortunately too scanty to try their effect upon a large scale, but I contrived to procure from them two or three ladies' slippers. As schoolboys are raised by birch, it may be hardly necessary to mention, that when reduced to manure they return the compliment; but it may be useful to make known as widely as possible, that dancing-masters supply the best hops and capers, besides quickening the growth of the citharexylum or fiddle-wood. For your mimosas or sensitive plants there is nothing better than a layer of novel-readers, and you may use up the first bad author that you can disinter for all the poppies you may require. Coffee-house waiters will keep you supplied in cummin; chronologists furnish the best dates, post-office men serve well for

rearing scarlet-runners, poulterers for hen-bane, tailors for cabbage, and physicians for truffles, or any thing that requires to be quickly buried. I could have raised a few bachelors' buttons from the bones of that class; but as nobody cares a button for bachelors, I did not think it worth while. As a general remark it may be noticed, that young people produce the passionflower in abundance, while those of a more advanced age may be beneficially used for the elder-tree, the sloe, and snapdragon; and with respect to different nations, my experiments are only sufficiently advanced to enable me to state that Frenchmen are favourable to garlic, and that Poles are very good for hops. Of mint I have never been able to raise much; but as to thyme, I have so large a supply, as the reader will easily perceive, that I am enabled to throw it away; and as he may not possibly be in a similar predicament, I shall refer him for the rest of my experiments to the records of the Horticultural Society.

PITCAIRN'S ISLAND.

Can such things be,

And overcome us like a summer cloud,
Without our special wonder?

SHAKSPEARE.

In the Spring of last year I landed with a watering party from the American brig Washington upon the remote Island of Pitcairn, where the mutineers of the

Bounty have establised a colony of English faces, and awakened echoes of the English tongue, amid the unexplored solitudes of the great Pacific Ocean. To me as a Briton every thing I beheld was intensely interesting;-the recognised countenances of my country, as exhibited in the male population-the soft skins and olive hue of the elderly females-the blended characteristics of both races in the younger inhabitants of either sex-the incipient corruption of the language by the adoption of Otaheitean terms and pronunciation-the strange incongruous union of civilization and barbarism,-were all so many distinct objects of curious speculation. Declining the proffered hospitality of the natives, I struck inland towards a hill at some distance, from whose summit I conjectured that I could easily command the whole limited extent of the country. On the side where I ascended there were but partial marks of cultivation, but the whole surface was a natural garden of palm, cocoa-nut, banana, and plantain trees, interspersed with guava and orange; and never had I beheld a more magnificent sun-set than that which burst upon my vision when I gained the top. Not a cloud floated in the horizonthe great orb of fire seemed to be sinking into an ocean of molten gold, the glowing waves heaving towards the shore with a slow and majestic undulation, while the sky exhibited every gradation of tint from the intensity of light to the rosy flushes and mellow purple of evening. While I was yet gazing, another and more silvery light seemed to steal across the heavens; and turning to the opposite quarter, I beheld the full moon

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