Unless an amateur gardener makes some such personal calendar of work, the things to be done are generally forgotten at the right time; and even where there is occasional help from a gardener, such a calendar is useful, as the general rules by which a jobbing gardener is guided cannot apply to every garden, at least, if the proprietors have any love for the garden and its work. I remember the amusing dismay of an old man upon being informed that he need not sow spinach between the rows of peas, as not one of the family ate spinach, and so no seed had been got from the seedsman : "it was always sown," he pled; "he had never seen peas sown without it; everybody had spinage in their garden;" and when he found us inexorable, he went grumbling away, evidently believing that the crop of peas that year would be a failure, because he had no spinach between the rows! If you merely wish to be reminded of the routine culture, and require also to see that it is done, the calendar in the almanac may do; but for private use, make a calendar of your own, and don't forget to read it now and then.

In winter, too, summer plans may be laid; beds may be arranged as to what plants are to go into each; schemes and alterations written out, and many a fine morning's saunter among the empty borders and beds may be made pleasant by such "forward-looking thoughts."

Indoors gardening, or window gardening as it is generally called, will, however, be the chief resource of lovers of flowers during the dull dead months of winter. Hyacinths, Van Thol tulips, scillas, narcissus, polyanthus, crocuses, and snowdrops, may all be cultivated in the sitting-rooms, if care is taken to keep them moist by means of moss laid on the pots, or around them, so as to lessen the evaporation caused by the dry air. Snowdrops and crocuses dislike being forced; they are not easily got to flower out • of season; but a few pots of them kept cool, and allowed plenty of air, will be cheerful looking indoors, even when their brethren are flowering without, for the weather then is frequently wet and stormy. Much disappointment is often experienced in buying plants in flower, or about to flower, from a nurseryman, from the change to a warm, dry room, causing them to fade rapidly; they should be inured to the change by degrees; if brought from a cool greenhouse, they may be kept for a day or two in a cool, not cold, room, the pots covered with moss, or plunged into it in a basket, and when established in the warm room, they should be kept moist by sponging the leaves occasionally with tepid water. All watering should be done early in the day, and the water should never be given quite cold, as the chill checks the roots. After all, it must be admitted that window-gardening is chiefly valuable for dwellers in towns or for invalids; and though no doubt these derive both pleasure and benefit from the culture and possession of flowers, it must ever be a less varied enjoyment than the garden is capable of yielding.

If I have succeeded at all, in these simple "Chronicles of a Garden," in awakening any one to a sense of how much pleasure is to be found at all seasons in a garden, however small, I shall feel glad indeed to have been the means of thus shewing that "the lines are fallen to us in pleasant places," and of making the reader enter into the feelings with which Wordsworth thus beautifully moralises on our common pleasures:-

"Oh, bounty without measure! while the grace Of Heaven doth in such wise from humblest springs Pour pleasure forth, and solaces that trace A mazy course along familiar things, Well may our hearts have faith that blessings come Streaming from founts above the starry sky With angels, when their own untroubled home They leave, and speed on nightly embassy To visit earthly chambers - and for whom? Yea, both for souls who God's forbearance try, And those that seek His help and for His mercy sigh."