However much our evergreens are valued, admired, and enjoyed in winter, we begin to look eagerly forward in spring to the budding of our shrubs, and who would not feel the blank the removal of these would occasion? Laburnums, lilacs, red and white hawthorns, may be classed, perhaps, rather among trees than shrubs; but, name them as you will, they are still the chief ornaments of the shrubbery. The guelder rose and syringa are also old-fashioned favourites; all these stand their ground even against the graceful Deutzchia scabra and rich Weigelia rosea. There is a great difference in one year, as compared with another, in the profusion of blossom borne by shrubs, and no one who has not watched for the summer bloom can believe the loss experienced when it is a "bad year " for the lilacs and laburnums, or the enjoyment afforded by the full rich abundance of massive clusters of lilac and golden showerlike tresses of laburnum, while the snowy balls of the guelder rose and the fragrant flowers of the hawthorn add their charms, and every change of light from morn till eve brings out a new beauty.

The difference observable in the brilliancy and beauty of the colours of flowers as they are seen by morning or evening light is curious. Rhododendrons are especially affected by it, the evening light bringing out, as it were, a fulness as well as delicacy of colour in those beautiful shrubs not discernible in the garish light of day.

During the winter months we are apt to think that the leafless branches of deciduous shrubs spoil the effect of the clumps of evergreens, near or among which they may be planted; but certainly in summer these latter add greatly to the beauty of the flowering shrubs, by the contrast their dark-green foliage makes, especially when the flowers are brought out as against a dark back-ground. Accidental effects of this kind must often have been remarked, such as a rose or honeysuckle which has insinuated itself into a holly, and climbing up till it gets to the air and light, covers the grave austere old tree with gay, bright, and fragrant flowers. But perhaps the shrub that most enlivens these groups of evergreens is the guelder rose or wayfaring tree : the effect of this plant "tossing its balls of foam" across or among the branches of a yew or laurel is most beautiful. Whence it derives its name of wayfaring tree is not known, but the following pretty lines give a pleasing guess on the subject:-

"Wayfaring tree! what ancient claim Hast thou to that right pleasant name? "Was it that some faint pilgrim came Unhopedly to thee,

"In the brown desert's weary way, 'Mid toil and thirst's consuming sway And there, as 'neath thy shade he lay, Bless'd the wayfaring tree?

"Or is it that thou lov'st to shew Thy coronals of fragrant snow, Like life's spontaneous joys that flow-In paths by thousands beat.'

"Whate'er it be, I love it well; A name, methinks, that surely fell From poet, in some evening dell Wandering with fancies sweet."

Were I attempting to write a book of gardening, it would be easy to give lists of flowering shrubs, many perhaps more beautiful than the old-fashioned favourites I have named; but all I am desirous of doing by these pages is to call the attention to the easily-procured, everyday pleasures of one's own garden. Those who can afford it, and who have gardeners to cultivate their grounds, ought to embellish them with all that is rich and rare; but let no one fancy that a small garden and shrubbery may not be made " beautiful exceedingly," and a source of delight, unless it is filled with new varieties, generally expensive to procure, and difficult to cultivate. I may have more to say on this subject when I come to write of flowers; but even now I may say that more enjoyment is often derived from a profusion of common shrubs than from a scanty supply of rare ones, to say nothing of the pleasure of being thus able to provide friends with nosegays, ungrudgingly cut.