Let me caution the inexperienced, however, against the danger of weakening the young plants when thus forcing them. It is not easy to regulate the due supply of air; and if too rapidly forced at first, the plants lose in strength what they gain in length, and do not correspond in their aftergrowth with their early start in life. I have a lively recollection of an experiment of this kind on a packet of zinnia seeds. The pots containing these were plunged into a heap of mown grass laid aside to decay, and, covered with a hand-glass, they sprang up as fast as heart could wish : but even when exposed to the air, they grew into tall weak shoots, and perished without having put out more than the two seminal leaves. Both zinnias, however, and asters, French and African marigolds, and some others, require a moderate hot-bed to start them; at least they are very apt to lie dormant a long time when sown in the open ground, coming up so irregularly, that half the seed seems to have been unripe. The pretty Tropoeolum Canariense, when first introduced, used to get little attentions of this kind, but now it is allowed to grow from the first in the open air; and indeed we find our best plants are those that spring up self-sown; of these there is always abundance, as well as of half-ripe seed for gathering. Soaking some seeds in lukewarm water is another means of hastening their ger-urination. Sweet peas, nasturtiums, lupines, and scarlet-runners, all sprout sooner when thus immersed in water for some hours before they are sown. Virginian stock is about the quickest grower of the small annuals, making its appearance above ground almost rapidly enough to satisfy the most youthful gardener:-not quite so soon, my young friends, as the next day after being sown, which, if I remember rightly, was the hoped-for time in long-ago days. Next comes the little speckled leaf of Nemophila insignis, and of Venus's looking-glass; the little blue-and-white dwarf lupine is also quickly above ground, opening its fleshy cotyledons, and unfolding its tiny whorls of leaves, each glistening like a diamond, for every one holds a dew-drop in its heart. Then comes the pleasant task of thinning out where too thickly sown, of weeding, of transplanting such as are to be distributed over the borders, or into beds, and last, but not least, the watering in the calm evening, when all hopes of a shower are over; and one is almost reconciled to the disappointment, because of the pleasure felt in refreshing the parched seedlings with our own hands.

Besides sowing seeds of annuals and biennials, there is much spring work to be done in the way of transplanting and dividing plants that have grown beyond bounds, or are spreading out their runners in search of "fresh fields and pastures new." It is a good time of year to look over the gardens of your friends as well as your own, to see what plants have thus "Broken their trim border lines, and stray'd O'er paths they used to deck; " for now is the time to try bits of all such, as well as to give them. Many plants struggle out of clue bounds from the necessity of getting fresh soil; they send out runners, and form young plants around the old roots, and these are the strongest and best pieces to take up and transplant. If the whole plant be lifted up and divided, fresh soil should be given to any portion of it that -may be replaced in the original situation. Double daisies become single after a time if not thus divided, and new pasture-ground provided for the roots; so do double violets; while mimulas, campanulas, and some others, provide one yearly with young-plants to give away, or to make use of in filling up blanks in the borders.

Every one who has had any experience in the common routine of garden work must have observed how frequently flowers that were once plentiful gradually disappear. Sometimes the gardener is blamed, sometimes it is supposed we have given away too many; but I suspect it frequently arises from neglect, if not contempt of common flowers. How often are large clumps of such dug up when they grow too large for the place they are in, and thrown away, because there are plenty more, or they are just common things, or because we cannot be troubled at the time to replant a portion of the root with a little fresh earth; and so by degrees common things disappear from the borders, and many sweet as well as pretty flowers are thus lost, just for want of a little consideration of "common things, and plenty of them." Is it only in our gardens we act thus? Are our common mercies never despised, our every-day opportunities of kind words and deeds never neglected, because they are common, and we fancy we have so many that we may neglect them occasionally, and no harm done?

In the Cottage Gardener for February 1850, are some remarks by Mr Beatoun on this subject of replanting our common flowers. He also alludes to this passing away of even favourites when neglected, because out of fashion; but it is to the last portion of the passage I am about to quote that I wish particularly to call the reader's attention, as it refers to one of the greatest pleasures connected with either gardening or any other pursuit, - namely, that of making experiments:-

"It is very singular, but it is certainly a fact, that many, or say all the summer-flowering herbaceous plants which creep about by their roots, or by stolons, which are underground branches, and not true roots, will flower from twice to four times their natural time, or usual length of time, if they are taken up in the spring before they make much growth, and are divided.....There are a great number of hardy plants in the way of composites, or with aster-looking flowers; and many of them might be had in flower more than double the usual time if they were treated after this manner. I used to know a good many of those old-fashioned plants, and not a bit the worse for being so; but I forget many of them, as one so seldom meets with anything now-a-days which is thought much of, unless it be new, or recently introduced; but I make no doubt about there being numbers of bedding hardy plants, now neglected in botanic arrangements, or in shrubbery borders, and the hint I wish to convey respecting them is this:-When the borders are having their spring dressing, let side-pieces from old patches of herbaceous plants be divided a little, and reset near to the established plant or patch, and let them be looked after for the rest of the season, and see they have no lack of water, or air, or thinning, or supports, or indeed in any of their needs. Then mark how much longer they will keep in flower than the old plant, - that is, on the supposition that they belong to the section of herbaceous plants suitable for that experiment; - note down the result. Try again and again, if you should fail in every one instance, because you did not hit just on the exact way it should be done at first. There is not a plant in the whole garden that I would let pass at the spring dressing without trying some experiment or another with it, so that I might know as much about it as anybody else, if not more. It must be very tiresome to have to send to the Cottage Gardener to ask every little thing one would like to know about flowers; and if so, why not try and learn by experiments '1 which, if they do not turn out to any good, no one need be the wiser. Depend upon it, the spade, the fork, and the trowel at work on a long border of old plants, could turn up more facts than the pen of the best writer amongst us."