A subscriber makes the suggestion that in the matter of heating greenhouses the common hot-air furnace may yet prove available. The objections against the hot-air furnace are two-fold. The hot-air pipes leak, and gas escapes into the pipes and mingles with the warm air that is discharged into the room, this gas being fatal to plant life. The second objection is the difficulty of making the air travel through a long narrow building like a greenhouse. A third objection is found in the "burning," so-called, of the air by coming in contact with the hot radiating surfaces. The air from the register is always dry, but "burned," or "devitalized," it could not be. The dust in the air may be burned and the ashes may mingle with the warm air and it doubtless does, but it is certainly less harmful than the dust, which may often contain the germs of disease. Our correspondent suggests the use of fire-clay furnaces and reports the use of such furnaces in dwelling houses. The idea is no doubt founded on the familiar porcelain stoves to be seen in Germany and Holland. Such stoves give out a soft, mild heat that is said to be free from the defects of our iron hot-air furnaces.

If a hot-air furnace could be made of fire-clay or similar materials, and if it could be made absolutely gas-proof, it would answer for a greenhouse and would have the advantage, in a small house, of making it easy to ventilate, because the furnace would be continually discharging warm fresh air into the building and forcing the bad air out.

Blossoms are the Joy of Trees, in bearing which they assume a new aspect, vying with each other in the luxuriance and variety of their colors. - Pliny.