To Destroy Slugs.

A correspondent of the Gardener’s Magazine states, that after in vain trying salt, lime, and dibbling holes for preserving young cauliflowers and cabbages from slugs, he succeeded by spreading some well cut chaff round the plants under hand glasses, and some round the outsides of the glasses.  The slugs in their attempt to reach the plant, find themselves immediately enveloped in the chaff, which prevents their moving, so that when he raised the glasses to give the plants air, he found hundreds of disabled slugs round the outside of the glasses, which he took away and destroyed.

To make Kitchen Vegetables tender.

When peas, French beans, &c. do not boil easily, it has usually been imputed to the coolness of the season, or to the rains.  This popular notion is erroneous.  The difficulty of boiling them soft arises from an excess of gypsum imbibed during their growth.  To correct this, throw a small quantity of subcarbonate of soda into the pot along with the vegetables.—­From the French.

Beet Root Sugar

Has now become an article of some practical magnitude in French commerce; since the annual consumption is between seven and eight million pounds.

Silk Trade.

It was lately mentioned by Mr. Huskisson, in the House of Commons, as a proof of the flourishing state of our trade, that British Bandanna handkerchiefs were in the course of shipment to India.  In addition to this fact, we can state of our own knowledge that they are now exporting to France, in no inconsiderable quantities, not merely as samples, but in the regular course of trade.—­For.  Quart.  Rev.

Electricity.

It is curious to take a retrospective view of the mode in which the effects of the Leyden phial were announced to the world, on their first discovery.  The philosophers who first experienced, in their own person, the shock attendant on the transmission of an electric discharge, were so impressed with wonder and with terror by this novel sensation, that they wrote the most ridiculous and exaggerated account of their feelings on the occasion.  Muschenbrok states, that he received so dreadful a concussion in his arms, shoulder, and heart, that he lost his breath, and it was two days before he could recover from its effects; he declared also, that he should not be induced to take another shock for the whole kingdom of France.  Mr. Allemand reports, that the shock deprived him of breath for some minutes, and afterwards produced so acute a pain along his right arm, that he was apprehensive it might be attended with serious consequences.  Mr. Winkler informs us, that it threw his whole body into convulsions, and excited such a ferment in his blood, as would have thrown him into a fever, but for the timely employment of febrifuge remedies.  He states, that at another time it produced copious bleeding at the nose; the same effect was produced also upon his lady, who was almost rendered incapable of walking.  The strange accounts naturally excite the attention and wonder of all classes of people; the learned and the vulgar were equally desirous of experiencing so singular a sensation, and great numbers of half-taught electricians wandered through every part of Europe to gratify this universal curiosity.