h-pieces of Oriental
pipes, we must say a few words concerning the extraordinary care
bestowed on some kinds of plain wood sticks for stems or tubes.
Cherry-tree stems, under the name of agriots, constitute a specialty
of Austrian manufacture. The fragrant cherry (prunus makaleb) is a
native of that country; and the young trees are cultivated with
special reference to this application. They are all raised from seed.
The seedlings, when two years old, are planted in small pots, one in
each; as they grow, every tendency to branching is choked by removing
the bud; and as they increase in size from year to year, they are
shifted into larger pots or into boxes. Great care is taken to turn
them round daily, so that every part shall be equally exposed to
sunshine. When the plants have attained a sufficient height they are
allowed to form a small bushy head; but the daily care is continued
until the stems grow to a proper thickness. They are then taken out
of the ground, the roots and branches removed, and the stem bored
through after being seasoned for some time. The care shown in rearing
insures a perfect straightness of stem, and an equable diameter of
about an inch or an inch and a half. The last specimens, when cut from
the tree, are as much as eight feet in length, dark purple-brown in
color, and highly fragrant. At Pesth are made pipes about eighteen
inches in length, of the shoots of the mock orange, remarkable for
their quality in absorbing the oil of tobacco, they are flexible
without being weak. The French make elegant pipe-bowls of the root of
the tree-heath, but their chief attention is directed, as far as
concerns wood pipes, to those of brier-root, which are made by them in
large quantities. The bowl and the short stems are carried out of one
piece, and the wood is credited with absorbing some of the rank oil of
tobacco.

Amber--the only kind of resin that rises to the dignity of a gem--is
unfitted for the bowl of a tobacco-pipe, because it cannot well bear
the heat; but it is largely used for mouth-pieces, especially by
wealthy Oriental smokers. The Turks have a belief that amber wards off
infection; an opinion which, whether right or wrong, tells well for
the amber workers. There has always been a mystery connected with this
remarkable substance. So far back as the Phenicians, amber was picked
up on the Baltic shore of what is now called Prussia; and the same
region has ever since been the chief store-house fo