the case of four children, who suffered severely from eating of the seed-pods, which they mistook for filberts; one of the patients continued for two days and nights in a profound sleep.

In the Philosophical Transactions there is an account of an insect, called the Henbane-Louse, which infests, or rather takes up its abode on this plant; the insect is of a fine red colour, spotted with black; it is thus described.

"In June and July it is common to see several series of oblong orange-coloured bodies, adhering to the upper sides of the leaves of this plant; these are the eggs of this insect. These eggs are whitish when first laid, but they become of a deeper colour when the young are about to be hatched. These ergs yield a colour, which is so fine that it may be worth introducing into use in some manner; it is a fine lively carnation. The insects themselves are so common, that it is scarcely possible to find a plant without them, and the eggs are not less frequent in their season in hot weather. These eggs are sometimes laid in May, but never later than June."

Henbane is poisonous to birds and dogs, but horses, cows, goats, and swine, are not affected by it.

THE WHITE POPPY.

THE milky juice found in many plants,-as, for instance, in the poppy, the lettuce, the dandelion, and others, has long been known for its soporific effects. This narcotic principle has been found to exist more particularly in the juice of the white poppy, from which is prepared the Opium of commerce. Laudanum, which is a solution of Opium in spirits, is well known, both for its beneficial effects when carefully administered, and for its

fatal results in the hands of ignorance or wickedness.

The Poppy is cultivated to a great extent, for the purpose of extracting the Opium, in many parts of Asia, and even in the southern countries of Europe. In India, the cultivation is confined to certain districts, and is carried on for the benefit of the government. The greatest part of the crops of Hindostan are carried to China, and smuggled into that country, in spite of the regulations which forbid its importation; for even the functionaries appointed to exclude the drug are as anxious as others to obtain it. This desire for Opium, on the part of the Chinese, arises from a pernicious habit prevalent among them, of smoking it, and of swal lowing it in the shape of pills, for the purpose of producing a species of intoxication.

The poppy is a very hardy plant, and in most climates can be sown either in the Spring, or the Autumn, as it stands the cold weather tolerably well. It will not bear transplanting; and must, consequently, be sown more thickly than it is intended to grow, and afterwards be thinned out.

Modern chemistry has succeeded in extracting the narcotic principle from crude Opium, in the form of a white crystallized substance, which is called Morphium. Small doses of this are now frequently administered, instead of larger quantities of Laudanum or Opium.

The seeds of the poppy yield, by expression, an excellent oil, equal, for the purposes of cookery, to the best olive-oil, and possessing none of the properties of opium itself, which appears to reside only in the milky juices of the plant. In Europe, although the poppy is culti vated to a considerable extent, it is chiefly for the sake of the seeds, and of the dry seed-pods, which are used in medicine.

The destructive habit of taking large doses of Opium, to produce a sort of temporary intoxication, prevails to a great extent in Eastern countries, particularly among the Turks. The effects are to be daily witnessed in Constantinople; where the miserable beings addicted to this vice may be seen assembled in some favourite house, enjoying their deadly luxury.

"I had heard so much of the sensations produced by this drug," says Dr. Madden, "that I resolved to know the truth; and accordingly took my seat in the coffee-house, with half a dozen Theriakis. Their gestures were frightful; those who were completely under the influence of the opium talked incoherently; their features were flushed, their eyes had an unnatural brilliancy, and the general expression of their countenances was horribly wild. The effect is usually produced in two hours, and lasts four or five; the dose varies from three grains to a drachm. I saw one old man take four pills, of six grains each, in the course of two hours. I was told he had been using opium for five-andtwenty years; but this is a very rare example, as an opium-cater seldom passes thirty years of age, if he commences the practice early. The debility, both moral and physical, attendant on its excitement, is terrible; the appetite is soon destroyed, every fibre in the body trembles, the nerves of the neck become affected, and the muscles get rigid. Several of those I have seen in this place, at various times, had wry necks and contracted fingers; but still they cannot abandon the habit. They are miserable till the hour arrives for taking their daily dose, and when its influence begins, they are all fire and animation. Some of them compose verses, and others address the by-standers in eloquent discourses, imagining themselves to be emperors, and to

have all the world at their command.

"I commenced with one grain: in the course of an hour and a half it produced no perceptible effect. The coffee-house keeper was very anxious to give me an additional pill of two grains, but I was contented with half a one; and in another half an hour, feeling nothing of the expected reverie, I took half a grain more, making two grains in the course of two hours. After two hours and a half from the first dose, I took two grains more, and shortly after this dose, my spirits became sensibly excited. The pleasure of the sensation seemed to depend on a universal expansion of mind and matter; my faculties appeared enlarged; every thing I looked on seemed increased in volume; but I had no longer the same pleasure when I closed my eyes, which I had when they were open. I made my way home as fast as possible, dreading at every step I should commit some extravagance. I was hardly sensible my feet touched the ground; and I'got to bed the moment I reached home. The most extraordinary visions of delight filled my brain all night. In the morning I rose, pale and dispirited; my head ached; and my body was so debilitated, that I was obliged to remain on the sofa all the day, dearly paying for my first essay at opium-eating."

The following description is from Hope's Anastasius, which, although a work of fiction, contains, in its descriptive scenes, correct and vivid representations of the manners of the East.

"The great mart of that deleterious drug is the Theriakee Tchartchee. There, in elegant coffee-houses, adorned with trellissed awnings, the dose of delusion is measured out to each customer according to his wishes. But, lest its

visiters should forget to what place they are hieing, directly facing its painted porticoes stands the great receptacle of mental imbecility, erected by Sultan Suleiman for the use of his capital.

"In this Tchartchee might be seen any day, a numerous collection of those whom private sorrows have driven to a public exhibition of insanity. There, each reeling idiot might take his neighbour by the hand and say, 'Brother, and what aileth thee, to seek so dire a cure? There did I, with the rest of its familiars, now take my habitual station in my solitary niche, like an insensible, motionless idol, sitting with sightless eyeballs staring on vacuity.

"One day, as I lay in less entire absence of mind than usual, under the purple vines of the porch, admiring the gold-tipped domes of the majestic Sulimanye, the appearance of an old man, with a snowwhite beard, reclining on the couch beside me, caught my attention. Half-plunged in stupor, he every now and then burst out into a wild laugh, occasioned by the grotesque phantasms which the ample dose he had swallowed was sending up into his brain. I sat contemplating him with mixed curiosity and dismay, when, as if for a moment roused from his torpor, he took me by the hand, and fixing on my countenance his dim, vacant eyes, said, in an impressive tone, 'Young man, thy days are yet few: take the advice of one, who, alas, has counted many. Lose no time; hie thee hence, nor cast behind one lingering look: but if thou hast not the strength, why tarry, even here? Thy journey is but half achieved. At once go on to that large mansion Lefore thee. It is thy ultimate destination; and by thus beginning where thou must end at last, thou mayest at least save both thy time and thy money."

THE POTATO.

THIS well-known and important vegetable holds an intermediate place between the grain-bearing plants, which supply us with flour for bread, and those of which the leaves, roots, &c., are consumed as food. The potato contains a large proportion of starch. This vegetable principle abounds most in seeds; and of all seeds, the Cerealia contain the most.

The potato thrives best in a light, dry, loamy soil, and does not require much manure of any kind. This plant is never raised from seed for a crop, but small pieces of the tubers, or potatoes, are cut out, each having a bud, or eye, in it. These pieces are called sets, and are planted in rows in March or April. The potato requires a considerable quantity of tillage during its growth, the crop must be kept perfectly free from weeds by frequent hoeings, and the weak stem must be supported by having the carth drawn up about it when the plants are young. The crop is gathered in October or November, when the stalks begin to decay; the plants are dug up, and the tubers taken off from the roots. If stored in a cool dry place, the potato will keep till near Midsummer of the following year, though in Spring the tubers will begin to put forth roots, especially if any damp gets to them. Should this vegetation proceed too far, the root is unfit for food, in consequence of the chemical changes brought about by the vegetable vitality.

The potato belongs to a family of plants, almost every one of which is, in a greater or less degree, poisonous. The noxious principles generally abound in the fruit or leaves, while the roots, and the subterranean stems, such as the potato, are commonly innocent, if not wholesome, when boiled; but so formidable are

the deleterious properties of the order, that even in the case of the valuable vegetable now under our consideration, the water in which it has been cooked is, in a certain degree, poisonous.

Starch in considerable quantities

is obtained from potatoes, by crushing them, and well washing the pulp repeatedly, in cold water, till all the starch is extracted; the water then must be evaporated, or decanted off, and the starch will be left nearly pure.