NO flower garden should be considered complete without an assortment of everlasting or eternal flowers. For their retention of life-like appearance long after the season of growth, and, if properly gathered and dried, their ability to endure great exposure, are qualities valuable enough to entitle this modest sisterhood to as' much attention as we pay their more beautiful, yet fragile and fleeting, relatives.

Though devoid of fragrance and of such harsh tissue as to be unsuitable for hand-bouquets, they are very desirable as vase-flowers, and for wall-decorations and other ornamental purposes, especially when living flowers cannot be procured, or, from their susceptibility to decay, would be inappropriate. On festive occasions, within doors, during the winter and early spring, and in all seasons out-of-doors, the continual brightness of their presence is always -agreeable ; while, for cheering funeral solemnities, or for adorning the burial-places of the dead, their unwithering properties, typical of the unchanging love of the bereaved, and also reminding us of the imperishable glories of the eternal world, seem peculiarly fitted.

The foliage of these plants, of a more succulent nature than their blossoms, withers in drought, and falls at the touch of frost; hence, its place must be supplied with other verdure when the dried blossoms are taken for decorations. This the evergreens furnish ; the club-mosses - Lycopodiums - suiting well the character of the everlastings. Lycopodium selago, the fir evergreen, and L. dendroideum - boquet-green, as it is called, because of its extensive use in making bouquets of fresh flowers - aro the best for this purpose. They grow in damp woods, particularly among pine trees, and among the roots of hemlocks and spruces. If gathered at any season, and kept in a damp, shady place, they retain their liveliness of hue as well as if growing in their native soil; but the autumn is the best time to secure them - then they are at maturity. They adapt themselves well to cultivation in moist soil, in shady situations, if covered with dead leaves through the cold weather.

Great quantities of lycopodium are in demand in early winter for Christmas decorations, both of churches and dwellings, and the manufacture of memorial devices for the cemeteries. These are generally made entirely of evergreens, or sparingly illuminated with the dried everlastings; as in this crown, where a few immortelles are introduced amid the green with fine effect. Emblems like this can be obtained at the flower stores; or their uncovered frames - wreath, half wreath, cross, crown, anchor, and other shapes - can be procured at the same place, and the evergreen and flowers easily arranged upon them at borne by any lady, who will doubtless find it a pleasant task to weave with her own fingers the verdure she has gathered and the flowers she has herself 10 raised into these offerings of reverent affection for the last resting-place of her loved ones.

The frames are of stout wire, or of light wood, sometimes overlaid with silver paper or tin-foil; but a coating of green cambric or paper is preferable. To cover a frame, hold it in the left hand; place a few sprigs upon it, in a row, and keep them there, while, with the right hand a cord is passed over their stems, binding them close to the frame; then arrange another row, in such a manner as to hide this cord and the stems of the first, as well as the material of the frame ; and so add row after row, mingling flowers with the green, when desired, till the design is completed. Care must be taken to place the sprigs in such a position that the surface presents an even and slightly convex appearance. To effect this it is best to use the lycopodiums in pieces about two inches in length, and to place but few in each row.

For some floral designs, the everlasting flowers alone are needed. This is the case with the French memorial wreaths and crosses, which are made entirely of graphaliums. Adopting the French familiar name, we call the flowers immortelles; but they are the same with our common life everlasting, that abounds in rocky pastures and along country roadsides. Antennaria and Filago, branches of the same family, flourish in meadows and sterile fields. The most beautiful of these are, Antennaria margaritacea, the pearly everlasting; Filago germanica, the cotton rose; and Ghraphalium decurrens, white life everlasting. These all bear transplanting to the garden when in bloom, and, if allowed to remain till the autumn winds scatter the seeds, multiply abundantly.

The flowers should be gathered in August - just before they are fully expanded - by cutting the stalks of the plants two or three inches below each cluster of blossoms. Then, to dry them: knot them, three or four inches apart, head downward, along a strong cord, and hang this cord across a dark, closed room. The cup-like form of the pretty rose-shaped flowers is thus preserved, and also their pearly whiteness. In a week or ten days they will be perfectly dry, and ready to shut away from the dust and dampness, in some tight box or basket, till wanted. Proceed in the same manner when gathering and drying any species of everlasting or eternal flowers, or their buds, and they will be of proper shape and color and retain their beauty for years. When used, their stems, being naturally too flexible to manage easily, must be strengthened by binding to broomstraws or small sticks or wires, with a strip of soft paper or a thread. If the flowers are to be taken singly, the clusters should be divided, and each individual stem improved in this way. So prevalent is the custom of decorating graves with memorial emblems made mostly or entirely of immortelles, that large quantities of the dried blossoms are imported, and can be purchased at any flower store.

They can be had in their natural hue - white ; or, dyed - black, lavender, purple pink, green, orange or yellow - for they readily take any common dye.

The forms for making this style of crosses, and other designs of immortelles, are usually of wire work, convex or plano-convex, in the interstices of which the stems of the flowers are placed, the whole presenting an even surface - as in this cross and wreath combined. Sometimes two or more colors are used in the same form, being arranged to Bait the fancy, in bands, rings, spirals, or any other shape - as shown in the annexed figure of a white cross, having a smaller one of black in its centre. On some forms letters, monograms, or other designs are made of silver paper, and so constructed as to rise above the flowers, appearing as if embossed thereon. All of these designs are for sale at the florists' stores, and any person can easily fill them.

Acrocliniums-A. roseum, A. album, and A. altro-ro-seum, producing respectively dark pink, white, and light pink blossoms, are very pretty for the garden, or for winter wreaths or bouquets. Plant the seed in May; bads will be seen in August. These are to be gathered and dried before fully expanded, and in the manner directed above for all everlastings.

Ammobium alatum - the winged ammobium of the gardens - needs good soil and a sunny situation. Gather and dry the same as the acrocliniums. It is a very desirable plant.

These species of eternals, or everlastings, are excellent flowers to use with immortelles in the fabrication of designs presenting a flat surface, as shown by this cross. A design of this sort is a fine ornament for the parlor wall, or for the church at Christmas, or for a burial-place at any season. If it is intended for out-of-door use the frame should be of wood, and the surface exposed to view covered with lycopodium, or the bright, green wood-moss ; the French moss, dried and dyed a brilliant green, may be bought at flower stores. The lycopodium for this purpose should be of the most delicate sort - just its tips about an inch in length - and this or the moss glued to the wood; then, immortelles in clusters, cut from their stalk and glued among the evergreens or moss ; and acroc-liniums and ammoniums the same, as represented in the out. The bits of lycopodium should be overlaid neatly.

When such a design is intended for in-door decoration, or can be kept from dampness, the evergreen or moss and flowers can be pasted or gummed to the frame, which will be sufficiently substantial out from book or box board. Any design requiring great precision and neatness of woikmanship, as this anchor - the emblem of hope - the beauty of which depends greatly upon the nicety with which its points are finished, is most properly made of box board, and pasted or sewed, the flowers being immortelles, both separate and clustered ; ammobiums and acrocliniums, buds and blossoms. Gomphrena globoid, the old-fashioned globe amaranth, is as good and as pretty as it ever was for the garden, as a window plant - growing all winter if taken within doors before the frost comes, and not kept too warm - or as a dried flower for bouquets, lishments. Complaint is often do not germinate. This is be envelope, from which they shou way to do this is to open each a fine needle. The seed then At on warm, mellow soil, a little so of sun given it. If started in ranths gain time for abundance of bloom.

This should be done early in spring, and the young gomphrenas transplanted to a garden bed in May. Set them a foot apart.

Gomphrena globosa rubra, with deep crimson flowers, is the most common, and a fine variety. G. g. alba, pure white, is very handsome ; also G. aurea superba, with orange yellow flowers. But the white should be planted some distance - several yards - from the crimson or the orange, or its blossoms will get discolored and dingy. The blush-colored and red and whits variegated are sometimes clear and distinct in their hues, but they cannot be depended upon.

The gomphrenas, especially Or, globosa rubra, form an elegant contrast with clusters of immortelles in Christmas or in memorial wreaths. The accompanying engraving shows how they should be disposed among the greenery. This style of wreath, its foundation being-a ring of stout wire, bamboo, ash, or other light wood, is made in the same way as the crown. (See illustration near the commencement of this paper.) The flowers, however, may be either bound in with the lycopodinm, or, after the frame is finished in evergreen, sewed among the sprigs. Letters, monograms and long garlands, or " festooning," are made in the same way. for church or parlor walls.