PLANTATION BITTEES, THE MAIN DESIGN Of the publication is, of course, to set forth the properties and uses of the Standabd Vegetable Tonic of Americanot obtrusively andVith a pompus flourish of trumpets, but simply and perspicuously, in a manner worthy of the attention of a shrewd and discriminating people. Exaggeration is left to the fuglemen of mere empirical preparations, that have nothing: but big words to recommend them. The popularity of Plantation Bitters, is founded on a rock of experience. Its name is as familiar to every household in the land, as that of any of the ordinary staples of life, and it ranks as an article of prime necessity wherever sickness is present or health is in peril. The continual increase in the consumption of the Bittersto which, judging from present indications, there is no assignable limitdemands from year to year a corresponding increase in the facilities of its manufacture. In 1868 the sales were nearly five millions of bottles, and as this Almanac goes to press, the sales for 1869 are already upwards of six and a quarter millions. To keep pace with the growing demand, large and costly additions have been made by Messrs. Drake & Co. to the machinery, &c, in their manufactory, and many ingenious improvements have been introduced in the chem::: al department which greatly expedite the production of the article. New inventions havo also been applied in the bottling and packing departments, by which the rapidity of these i rocesses has been promoted, and several new receivers of extraordinary capacity have been added to the ranges of tanks previously in use. The factory is now capable of turning out nearly ten millions of bottles annually, and at the present ratio of increase in the demand, that quantity will be barely sufficient to fill the orders, foreign and domestic, for 1875. The business has attained its present vast proportions in the short period of niB o yearsa specimen of commercial progress which it would be difficult to match in the mercantile history of even this go-ahead country. It would be an insult to the proverbial sagacity of the people to ask if any save an article of sterling value, could have obtained the commanding position now occupied by the Plantation Bitters in the national market. The distribution of six million copies of this book, free of cost, in North and South America and the West Indies, is a fact that speaks for itself. The expense of publication and dissemination, as nearly as it can now be estimated, will be about two hundred thousand dollars, The brochure is got up, as the reader will see, in the style not of an old fashioned Almanac, but of a first-class magazine. As a literary production, to say nothing of the merits of its medical department" Morning, Noon and Night," ranks with the popular periodicals of the day. It may be safely said that it is the most expensive publication of the kind ever issued for gratuitous distribution. Statistics sometimes fail to convince the incredulous, but even the skeptic who is induced to cavil at figures and doubt their accuracy, cannot question the magnitude of a business that justifies such an enormous outlay of capital without reference to any direct return. Only a few mercantile establishments in this country yield a clear income larger than the amount annually expended in the mere advertising of the Plantation Bitters, to say nothing of the cost of materials and manufacture, the charges for transportation, the duties p lid to the government, and other incidental expenses. When it is remembered that the aomty to afford these immense disbursements is founded solely on the pecuniary success of the article, and that it is only nine years since it was first offered to the world, the public can guess for themselves what that success must have been. They will see, too, that it cannot be based on anything but the superior merits of the preparation that has achieved this unprecedented triumph. With these brief allusions to the purpose of the publication, and to the celebrated vegetable specific which it commends to all who need a genial restorative, the most attractive Gift Book ever issued 1b the interests of medical science is submitted to a reading and refecting comiETroity.