Coal-tar, a waste product of gas-works, can be applied with an ordinary painter's brush, and may be used cold, except in very cold weather, when it should be slightly warmed before application. Coal-tar has remarkable preservative properties, and may be used with equal advantage on living and dead wood. A single application, without penetrating deeper than ordinary paint, forms an impervious coating to the wood-cells, which would, without such covering, under external influences, soon become channels of decay. This simple application then produces a sort of instantaneous cauterization, and preserves from decay wounds caused either in pruning or by accident. The odor of coal-tar drives away insects, or prevents them, by complete adherence to the wood, from injuring it. After long and expensive experiments, the director of the parks of the city of Paris finally, in 1863, adopted coal-tar, in preference to other preparations used, for covering tree wounds. In the case of stone fruit trees it should, however, be used with considerable caution, especially on plum trees. It should not be allowed to needlessly run down the trunk; and it is well to remember, that the more active a remedy is the greater should be the care in its application. The practice of leaving a short stump to an amputated branch, adopted by some to prevent the loss of sap, although less objectionable in the case of coniferous trees than in that of others, should never be adopted. Such stumps must be cut again the following year close to the trunk, or cushions of wood will form about their base, covering the trunk with protuberances. These greatly injure the appearance and value of the tree, and necessitate, should it be found desirable, the removal, later on, of such excrescences, causing wounds two or three times as large as an original cut close to the trunk would have made. THE TOMATO PACK OF 1883. Through the co-operation of packers in all parts of the United States, the American Grocer was enabled to present its annual statement of the 1883 pack of tomatoes some weeks earlier than usual. Despite a cold, backward spring, unusually low temperature throughout the summer, with cool nights in August and September, drouth in some sections, early and severe frosts in others, the trade is called upon to solve the question: Can the demand absorb a supply of three million cases? The pack of 1883 is heavily in excess of that of 1882, due to an increase in the number packers, and to an unusually heavy yield in New Jersey and Delaware. In detail, the result in the different States is as follows: