_Plums._

The _Magnum Bonums_ are fit for nothing but tarts and sweetmeats.
_Magnum_ is right enough; but as to _bonum_, the word has seldom
been so completely misapplied.

_British Wines._

That which we call currant wine, is neither more nor less than
red-looking, weak rum, the strength coming from the sugar; and gooseberry
wine is a thing of the same character, and, if the fruit were of no other
use than this, one might wish them to be extirpated. People deceive
themselves. The thing is called _wine_, but it is _rum_; that is
to say, an extract from sugar.

_Birds._

The wild pigeons in America live, for about a month, entirely upon the
buds of the sugar-maple, and are killed by hundreds of thousands, by
persons who erect bough-houses, and remain in a maple wood with guns and
powder and shot for that purpose. If we open the craw of one of these
little birds, we find in it green stuff of various descriptions, and,
generally, more or less of grass, and, therefore, it is a little too much
to believe, that, in taking away our buds, they merely relieve us from the
insects that would, in time, eat us up. Birds are exceedingly cunning in
their generation; but, luckily for us gardeners, they do not know how to
distinguish between the report of a gun loaded with powder and shot, and
one that is only loaded with powder. Very frequent firing with powder will
alarm them so that they will quit the spot, or, at least, be so timid as