An explosion last July at a gunpowder factory in Lancashire, by which four men lost their lives, was caused by lightning. This disaster once more calls attention to the grave necessity which exists for buildings, and such buildings especially, to be protected by efficient lightning-conductors. From Colonel Ford’s Report upon the matter, which as Inspector of Explosives he has just presented to the Secretary of State, it appears that a conductor was fitted to the doomed building, but that it was a defective one. He states that there is no authentic case on record where a properly constructed lightning-conductor failed to do its duty; and recommends that these safeguards should be periodically examined and tested. From time to time, we have given in these pages the results of different experiments with the new method of preserving fodder, known as ensilage, and have expressed the hope that our farmers may find in it some compensation for recent bad times. We now learn from the agricultural returns for 1884 how widespread have been the experiments in this direction. These returns state that no fewer than six hundred and ten silos have been built in this country, of which five hundred and fourteen are to be found in England, sixty in Scotland, and thirty-six in Wales. Of the English counties, Norfolk heads the list with fifty-nine silos. In Scotland, Argyll has twelve, and is followed by Lanark and Renfrew, which counties have each half that number. The largest silo noted in the returns is in the county of Argyll. We may gather from these figures that the principle of ensilage as adapted to British farming has now entirely passed the experimental stage. (This important subject is further noticed in one of our Occasional Notes. See p. 829.) The novel proposal has lately been made by Mr W. O. Chambers, the Secretary of the National Fish-culture Association, that fishponds should be established on lands which are unavailable for ordinary crops, and that unprofitable agri-culture should give place to profitable aqua-culture. The fish which it is said can be made to accomplish this desirable result is the carp, and the German carp in particular. According to Mr Chambers, this fish attains in three years a weight of four pounds, and its fecundity is so great that it will yield an average of half a million eggs. He states that one acre of water will produce, with little or no expense for food or maintenance, five thousand fish per annum. In a word, we are recommended to do as did the monks of old when monastic buildings were dotted over the land. The remains of fish stews or ponds left to us by the monks can be pointed to in plenty, and the question arises, if fresh-water fish-culture is really so profitable, why were these ponds suffered to fall into disuse? Another consideration arises as to whether, supposing the scheme to be possible, modern taste, not compelled to eat fish on certain days, would find the fresh-water variety palatable?