ARTICHOKES. (From the Gardener's Chronicle.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVII, Issue 1378, 26 February 1861, Page 4

ARTICHOKES. (From the Gardener's Chronicle.)

We do not think that much of Artichokes m England, though all gardens of the better class contain some. But in other countries they form au important object of cultivation, especially for the sake of the "bottoms," which, when dried aie in great lequest in Fiance, where numerous dishes aie prepaiedfrom them worthy of even Imperial tables. Possibly we do not glow them so skilfully as we might ; possibly we have not the best sorts ; probably we want the skill to cook them. A few hints therefore on Perpignan Artichokes, given in the Itevue Horticole, may lead to some improvement. At the district exhibition which was held, in 1859, at Carcassonne, there appealed among other pioduce of the country collections of Aitichokes. In a note which accompanied them it was alleged that their excellence was owing to the nature of the alluvial soil in which they giew, and to the watering they got. The river Basse, satuiated, as it appears, with town sewage, feeds numerous canals, which aie made to irrigate the adjoining garden ground. Four soits of Artichoke are giown there, the favouute being what they call the Artichaet blanc or rfj&> quatre saisons, elsewhere named Arlichaut gns This land is quite as productive as the Gros itrt de Laon giown on a gieat scale at Aubervilkers and elsewheie ; 01 the Gros Camus de Tours, cultivated at Nantes, Rouen, and all the central west of Fiance ; besides which it is in bearing eight months m the year (this, however, only m the South we piesume) and is much the hardiest known, it having been the only sort which escaped m 1829, an inundation of the market gardens of Peipignan, followed by intense frost. The extent to which Aitichokes aie grown in France ■« ill probably svupn&e English readers. One market gardener giew 10,000 plants as long ago as 1826, and the demand for the article continually iucieases. It is repoited thatm the ncighboiuhood of Peipignan alone, in the yeai 1838 9 (a wmtoi ciop, fiom October to May in that waim legion) the Qualic saisoni Aiti choke furnished 3,500,000 dozens, woith 875,000fr. (35,000? ), at 2\d. a do7en ; the whole leceipts for this kind of ciop having amounted to 42,200?.

Professor Marcot, of Geneva, has, lately examined a senes of ineteoiological observations fiom 1800 to 1860 with refeience to the influence of the moon on the weathei. He finds that its influence on the lainfall may be legaided as nothing. On the question of changes of weather he finds by calculation that the average probability of a chango of Weather on any day is 0.20, that the probability of a change of weather on the day of full moon is 0 121, and new moon 1. 125 ; for the day aftei the full moon 0 143, and foi the day after the new moon 0 148. Both at new and full moon these changes have been from foul to fair 106 times where they have been from fair to foul 77 times. Tne celebrated rule of Maishalßugeaud was. this : Eleven times out of twelve, the weather during the whole moon follows the weather of the fifth day of the moon if on the sixth day it lemams as it was on the fifth ; and nine times out of twelve it follows the fouith day if on the sixth day it follows the fourth. Mr. Hamson has long since shown the dissolving action of the moon on the clouds.

Hostility of Nature in Africa. — At a certain distance from the seaboaid the tiaveller arrives at Ghauts, an elevated plateau, wheie the air is puie, and more healthful. But a funge, appaiently enclosing the larger part o£ the Afiican continent, has fiist to be passed, and its dangeious influences eucounteied. Upon quitting the zone of cultivation, about the settlements of the coast and the margin of its rivers, you cross a steep and muddy bed, kneedeep even in the dry season, and enter fields under the outlying hillocks of the highlands. These low cones, like similar foimations m India, are not inhabited ; they aie even more malarious than the plains , the surface is rocky, and the woodage, not ceasing as in higher elevations, extends from base to summit. Beyond the cultivation the route plunges into a jungle, where the Euiopean tiaveller realizes every preconceived idea of Africa's aspect — at once hideous ond grotesque. The geneial appearance is a mingling of bush and foiest, which, conti acting the horizon to a few yards, is equally monotonous to the eye and palling to the imagination. The black, greasy ground, veiled with thick shrubbery, suppoi ts in the more open spaces screens of tiger and speai grass, twelve and thirteen feet high, with eveiy blade a finger's bieadth ; and the toweling trees aie often clothed fiom loot to twig with huge e2>iphytes, forming heavy columns of densest veiduie, and olustering upon the tops in the semblance of enoimous buds' nests. The footpaths, in places "dead, "as the natives say, with encioaehiug bush, aie ciossed by elianas, cieepers, and climbers, thick as con* cables, some connecting the trees m a curved line, otheis stretched straight down the tumks, others winding m all directions around their supports, frequently ciossmg one another like network, and stunting the growth of even the vivacious calabash, by com like rope tightly encn cling it neck. The earth, ever ram drenched, emits the odour of sulphuretted hydrogen. Even m the fine weather atmospheie is pale and sickly, its mists and vapouis seem to concentrate the rays of the oppressive "lam-sun." That no feature of miasma may be wanting to complete the pictme, filthy heaps of the rudest hovels, built in holes in the jnngle, shelter their few miserable inhabitants, whose frames are lean with constant intoxication, and whose limbs, distorted by ulceroub soies, attest the hostility of native to mankind. Such a levoltmg scene is East Afnca, from Central Klmtu to the base of the Uragara. — Lake Ihgions of Central , Africa.

"Lord Brougham as an Old Woman. — In roplymg to the toast of 'The Laches,' after a dinner at Glasgow, Lord. Biougham said ; — 'It is an old saying at the English bar, that after a certain age a man becomes an old woman (laughter), an observation which is currently and not very decorously applied to our old judges by those who travel m Westminster Hall. But, that being the case, and I having attain ed the distinction of an old woman, do myself the honoui to letuin thanks for tho ladies (loaia ot (l.iughtei, for myself and my youngor sisteit> (lencwed laughtei), for the kind leception you have given to the learned, sheriffs jnopoacd toast. 1 " (Loud cheers.)

Abit of romance about Garibaldi (says the Aiheturnm) may help to explain the hostility of the Two Sicilies to France, and that of the Emperor of the French towards the liberator of Italy. The family of Gai ibaldi, like the family Bonaparte, is Corsican ;{,and theuame of Pozzo di Borgo or of Lovil Blanc is evidenc^Bth what fiery hate a Corsican may pursue his venuett* against that lucky race. The Dictators grandfather, Joseph Battiita Maria Garibaldi, was one of thoie patriot Coisicans who gave the crown to Count Yon Neuboff, crowned Theodore the First of Corsica ; and being sent by the new King on a message to his mother, Madame Yon Neuhoff, who lived at Peddenoh, Jliiggeberg, in the Mark Country ( now part of Westphalia), Garibaldi there fell in love with the King's sister, Catherina Ainaho, and with his soveieign's consent, married her. The registry of this marriage, we read in a Rhine paper, is still to be seen at Riurgeberg In the same year Garibaldi took Catherina home to Ajaccio ; but fortune failing the patriot, Theodore fled befoie the Genoese to England, where he became the idol and butt of Walpole, who traduced his character, and wrote the inscription over his monument in St. Anne's Church — bewailing the fortune "Which bestowed a Kingdom and denied him bread." Joseph B.vttista Maiia Garibaldi fled horn Corsica to Nice, wheie, after a French conquest and occupation of the island put an end to the last hopes of independence, he forgot politics add practised as a physician. Hib grandson is the Dictator. Meanwhile, the offences of the Boni'partes against the Ganbaldi have giown in bulk tnd in atiocity, Corsica has been made Fiench. Nice has now been made French, The old country, the new country, aie alike gone. More, the very last home of the head is meaced. Caprera, the lonely green rock in the Straits of Bonifacio, which he has bought with his gains and peopled which his pigs and asses belongs to the island of Sardinia, and must follow it 3 path should a new "recovery " of temtory to France take place. Thus the Buonapartes seem to cha.se the Garibaldi like an evil fate, leaving them no foot of earth on which the soles oj their feet can rest in peaoe. who can wonder at the Dictator's doubt, suspicion, and dislike ' Aromantic speculation may be allowed to close I the record of these romantic facts. Theodore, King of Coisica, left no lawful son. An illegitimate son, known about London streets as Colonel Frederick, a man of mark m his day, pistolled himself under one of the porches of Westminster Abbey. The title had been declared by the Corsican parliament hereditary in Theodore's family, a near branch of which Dictator Garibaldi now represents. Thus Garibaldi's title to the throne of Corsica is just as good as that of Louis Napoleon was a dozen years ago to the throne of France. Suppose the Italian "idea" should dawn at Ajaccio 1 There are pretenders to crow/is who h«,ve no better claim from history, and far less from merit and servic3, than Joseph G ribaldi, present Dictator of ths Two Sicilies. The Annihilation op the French Army in Russia. — In July, 1812, the French commenced ho-stihties 650, 000 strong. By the middle of November, as they appioached the Beresina with Napoleon, the grand total might amount to 70, 000 or 80, 000 souls, of which number the combatants did not exceed half. Even this number was being daily diminished. On the 2nd of December the official return stated that there were but 7 ,000 infantry and 2, 000 cavalry underarms. On the sth Napoleen left his shattered force and hastened to Pans, having made over the command to Murat. By the 10th of December the little band of combatant* under Murat was reduced by hunger, and the assaults of the enemy to 4,500 men. For a moment they sought refuge in Wilna. It was of no avail, The cossack* were upon them "with their horrid screech, " and they had to fly. On the 14th of December, after crossing the Memen, the grand army could muster under arms only 400 infantry and 600 cavalry. Out of all the guns with which these crops had crossed the Memen only nine remained. It was the most frightful disaster that everbefel an army, the gieatest disgrace that ever befel a commander. It is true that the French ilrmy did not blame Napoleon. Their suffering w»s the fortune of war, they said; it was the decree of fate. History will not so easily acquit the French Ernpe^or. He had courted the unparelleled calamity. He had dared the spirit of a patriotic people. So perish all <uch schemes of nnprmcipled aggression ' So may we, if the evil day should evei come, meet the invader with unflinching front, with unselfish devotion, with implacable opposition, and with the assurance of triumph. Turi»er Checkmating a Rival —In 1832, when Constable exhibited his " Opening of Waterloo bridge," it was placed in the school of painting — aje of the small rooms at Somerset house A sea-piece, by Turner, was next to rt — a grey picture, beautiful »nd ti ue, but with no positive colour in any part of it Constable's "Wateiloo" seemed as if painted with liquid gold and silver, and Turner Game several times intq^ke room while he was heightemng with vermilion and^K the decoiations and flags of the city baiges. Turner stood behind him, looking from the " Wateiloo" to his own pictiue, and at last bi ought his palette from the great loom, wheie he was touching another pictuie, and putting a round daub of led lead, somewhat bigger than a shilling, on Ins grey sea, went away withuut saying a word The intensity of the led lead, mado mote vivid by the coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilhon and lake of Constable to look weak. I came into the room 311 st as Tinner left it. "He has been here," said Constable, " and filed a gun " On the opposite wall was a pictuie, by Jones, of "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego 111 the furnace." "A coal," said Cooper, " has bounced iicioss the loom from Jones's picture, and set file to Turner's sea. ' The great man did not come again into the room for a day and a half, and then, in the last moments that were allowed for painting 1 , he " glazed" the scarlet he had put on his picture, and shaped it into a buoy. — Ledie'i> A utobwgi apJucal Recollections. The Skfleton of "Eclipse" — Piofessor Gamgeo has seemed for the New Veterinary College the uones of this noble animal at a cost of 100 guineas The skeleton has for nearly seventy years been in the poss >ssion of the illustrious Bracy Clark. Its high intunsic value depends on Eclipse being regaidod fiom, his great fleetness and power of endurance, as the finest typo of a blood horse ever born. From the blood of this horse are derived all the most renowned perfo' men of the present time, and it was from the skill and talent displayed by Sainbel in dissecting this horse, and publishing a memoir on his unrivalled proportions, that ensuied him the support in founding the Royal Veterinary College of London, Large sums have been offered for this remarkable skeleton, and, amongst otheis, sixty guineas by the Royal College of Suigeons of England; Mr. Bracy Clark, the first studeut of the London Collage, received the bones from Sainbel himself, and has justly said of them that " they may be securely referred to as an unexceptional model on which to calculate speed in horses." — Scots man. Fatal Duel Behveen two Brothebs —The Natchitoches Chronicle (U.S ) of the 25th August, recoids the following teirible tiagedy : — A quarrel arose a few nights ago, between two bi others name Longuio (William andßuml,) lesidmg a few miles above Campte, when a proposition being made by one of them that they should fight it out immediately with double ban eled shotguns, it was accepted by the othei, and flung simultaneously, both of them weie instantly killed.

THE SCOTCH SETTLER. (Fiom (he Otago Witness.) Jenny w.is washing, And scolding like mad, The house it was reeking, The weather was bad ; The bairns they were greeting — Some orymg for meat, Ane had gotten the cauld, Ane had sairhackot feet ; The fire wadna burn, For the Wood it 'Was grefln— 'Twas manuka, ye see, And it bleant their eett ; The door wadna shut, For the hinges weie broke, It wanted the sneck, And it wanted the lock ; The windows weie broken, And stuffed up wi strae ; The house was their barn — Built o' wattlo and clay — Whaur they skutehed out their wheat O'er the sides o' a ban-el , And a very sail struggle They had wi the worl'. But the battle was fought, And the battle was won, : They have now sheep and kye, And a good skelp o' grim' ; For they stuck to their tack "With a he<ut and a will, And set a stout heart To a veiy steep lull. We can all do the same If we only will tiy : A stout British heait Will never say die. Wo must never give in Whilst theie's powder and shot, And tlioin that wont fight, They must just go to pot.

John Baiuj.