The English grapes, coming from Worthing and so on, are certainly preferred to those that come from Belgium or the Channel Islands. By the end of April, 1907, and at the beginning of May, they were even sold at 2s. and 4s. the pound. The best and largest grapes for the dinners are evidently fetching fancy prices. But at last the Hamburg grapes, which were late in 1907 and 1908, began to arrive from Belgium, the Channel Islands, and England, and the prices suddenly fell. By the end of May the Belgian Hamburgs fetched only from 10d. to 1s. 4d. the pound, and the prices were still falling. In June and July the gardeners could only get from 5d. to 7d., and during the months of September, October, and November, 1908, the best Guernsey grapes were quoted at 6d. the pound. Very beautiful ones fetched only 4d. the pound. It was only in the first days of November that the prices went up to 10d. and 1s. 1d. But already, in the second half of December, the new crop of Colmars began to pour in from Belgium, and the prices fell to 9d., and even to 6d. per pound about Christmas. We thus see that, notwithstanding a great demand for the best hothouse grapes, with big grains and quite fresh cut, these grapes are sold in the autumn almost at the same prices as grapes grown under the beautiful sun of the south. As to the quantities of grapes imported to this country, the figures are also most instructive. The average for the three years 1905-1907 was 81,700,000 lbs., representing a value of £2,224,500. T.--THE USE OF ELECTRICITY IN AGRICULTURE. In the first editions of this book I did not venture to speak about the improvements that could be obtained in agriculture with the aid of electricity, or by watering the soil with cultures of certain useful microbes. I preferred to mention only well-established facts of intensive culture; but now it would be impossible not to mention what has been done in these two directions. More than thirty years ago I mentioned in _Nature_ the increase of the crops obtained by a Russian landlord who used to place at a certain height above his experimental field telegraph wires, through which an electric current was passed. A few years ago, in 1908, Sir Oliver Lodge gave in the _Daily Chronicle_ of July 15 the results of similar experiments made in a farm near Evesham by Messrs. Newman and Bomford, with the aid of Sir Oliver Lodge’s son, Mr. Lionel Lodge. A series of thin wires was placed above an experimental field at distances of ten yards from each other. These wires were attached to telegraph poles, high enough not to stand in the way of the carts loaded with corn. Another field was cultivated by the side of the former, in order to ascertain what would be the crops obtained without the aid of electricity.