We often hear of the cold inhospitable northern regions, and favored southern climates, where Nature does everything, and all man has to do is to lie on his back and let the generous harvest drop into his mouth. But, reading the Tropical Agriculturist, one of our exchanges from India, we find they are pestered beyond measure by all sorts of ills. The larvae of the cockchafer, or as we know it here the "May-beetle, feeds on the roots of the coffee to such an extent, and the leaf fungus preys so alarmingly on the foliage, that it takes labors like those of Hercules to get a successful coffee crop. So with Cinchona, which, grown for quinine, we are told in the United States, is such a grand success in Ceylon. The climate is good enough for it and it grows, but what with blights, and moulds and insects, the cultivator often gets sick at heart. As for the insects, as a last resort, they talk of introducing the English sparrow. On this subject the controversy waxeth warm. Some assert that these birds have proved such an unmitigated nuisance that large rewards are offered for their destruction, while others point to the United States, where, it is confidently asserted, "heavy penalties have been enacted by Legislatures and city governments for their protection, as much as five dollars per bird being the fine on those who destroy them."

These proceedings go to confirm a point we have often made - that when it is desired to bolster up any doubtful cause, it is much better to go to the other end of the world or to ages dead and buried long ago for arguments in support thereof, than to what people can verify for themselves.