The principal objection to good garden tools is their costlines; but this is more nominal than real, for, from their better quality, they generally outlast tools of an inferior stamp, and thus they are more ceonomieal in the end than common articles, of which the first cost may be considerably less. In every article needful in gardens, even including men, the best will always, be the cheapest, although costing the most money . - Two millions sterling in value of beet-root spirits were distilled in France last year a monstrous increase on former seasons. sheep and bullocks are fed on the residues of beet after distillation, which may have had something to do with the spread of the cattle murrain. - - A party has lately ascended Chimboraso, and pronounce it perfectly accessible. Its. height is 19,632 feet. - The plover is pronounced, by a writer in the Gardener's> chronicle, a perfect slug destroyer. He says: "A couple of these most interesting birds (male and female) would, I am almost certain, soon dear, and keep clear, any one's ground; and if he is a lover of animated nature, and these birds should breed, he will be delighted with the extreme tenderness they manifest towards their young, which are produced about the month ' of May; and he had better get young ones, as the old, being very wild of flight, would moat likely pine.

The young are'se like the clods or stones among which they are hatohed (as the parents make no nest) that, but for the glint of the bright large eye, they would remain undiscovered, and as long as danger is near they lie like stones, until the anxious old ones give the safety call, when they rise and run about nimbly. They feed by night as well as by day, for, on returning home at night from a visit in the country, I have heard a whole flock of them giving tongue like a pack of hounds in the marshy meadows, or, rather, like a troop of aldermen over a turtle feast, for the slugs and worms do not like to show their faces in the bright sunshine so well as the dewy nights of summer." - Mr. MoEwen is now the Superintendent of the Horticultural Societies' garden at Turnham green, london, and is giving great satisfaction. Among his improvements, the American garden is being altered and increased in extent, and, in order to induce people visiting other portions of the grounds to turn their steps in that direction, the walk between it and the conservatory is to be lined with standard Rhododendrons, which, when in flower, will doubtless produce a brilliant display quite in keeping with the character of the grounds of which they are intended to form a part.

An apparatus for determining night temperatures at different altitudes, has been erected in the kitchen garden. It consists of a pole 80 feet.in height, with registering thermometers attached to it; one at the top, another 24 feet from the ground, a third 18 feet from ditto, a fourth 12 feet, a fifth 6 feet, and a sixth nearly at the ground. On the morning of the 13th of March, the thermometer on the ground indicated 28º, at 6 feet high 31°, and at 12 feet 32º, making a difference of 4º in that height. On the 16th, the difference of warmth between the same height and the ground was 8°. The practical lesson to be learned from these facts will be obvious. They serve, in some measure, to explain the reason why blossoms have been killed by spring frosts on dwarf fruit-trees, while those on tall standards have escaped, and, also, the necessity of protecting the leading shoots of the more tender Conifers, and other favorite plants, in severe winters until they have grown at least 12 feet in height. From that to 30 feet in height, the temperature has hitherto been found to be the same.

As yet, however, these experiments may be said to be but in their infancy. - At one of the last meetings of the Academic des sciences, at Paris, a member produced a number of wheat-halms of more than seven feet in height, each of them bearing several splendid ears. This fine species comes from five grains found in an Egyptian tomb; sown in 1849, they yielded 1,200 fold produce. In 1660, the experiments were made on a large soale, and assumed a more important character; they have since been regularly continued. One half of a field was sown with the Egyptian, the other half with common wheat; the former gave 00 fold, the seoond a 10 fold produce. The experiments are now made in always increasing extension, and we may be on the eve of a great revolution.

The Grammar of Ornament is the title of Mr. Owen Jones's great illustrated work on various styles of ornament, which, the London Athenaeum says, " is bright enough to serve a London family in summer instead of flowers, and to warm a London room in winter as well as a fire. It contains the. result of a life's study, aided by pupils, friends, and workmen." It contains one hundred folio plates. - Recently, at the London Horticultural Society, a young stem of the Rice Paper Plant (Aralia papyrifera), cut in the Island of Formosa by Mr. Fortune, who has lately returned from China, was exhibited by that gentleman. He stated that there is now no doubt that Formosa yields the greater part of the Rice paper of commerce. This beautiful substance is largely consumed in the Canton and Fokien provinces. In the city of Foo-Chou-foo, every lady wears artificial flowers made from it. It is estimated that this place alone consumes about 30,000 dollars' worth of it annually! The cheapness of this article in the market shows that it must be very abundant in its place of growth. One hundred sheets, each about three inches square, can be bought for the small sum of three halfpence. One almost wonders, Mr. F. remarked, that it is not more sought after by workers in artificial flowers.

Rice paper is the pith of the plant, cut into thin sheets by the Chinese. - The Floricultural Cabinet gives a fine illustration of the Clematis lanuginosa, var. Pallida, and says it is one of the handsomest hardy climbers we possess, and remarkable, more especially, for the immense size of its flowers, some of which have measured ten inches in diameter. It resembles closely in habit C. patens and florida, and is therefore excellently adapted for trellis-work, verandas, and other erections of like character. Having stood the late severe winters at Paris with no other protection than a slight covering of leaves, we may be assured that there are few places where it would not do well. It is easily multiplied by layers or cuttings, and will no doubt prove a great acquisition to all who are fond of showy climbers. - Plants are, says a late able, writer, in virtue of their amazing ability to convert the simplest and commonest ingredients of air, earth, and water, into the most complex and precious compounds, of as much value to the industrialist, considered simply as pieces 0/ apparatus, as the most elaborate engines he has constructed. Nor is it otherwise with animals.