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HYBERNATION OF PLANTS.

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their constitution; but no doubt it will also be found that as the dormouse, the sloth, the snake, the mole, &c., undergo a greater or less degree of torpidity, and some require it not at all—so in plants, the length and degree will vary much in different species, and according to their state of artificial cultivation. As a general rule, young gardeners must take heed not prematurely to force the juices into action in spring, nor to keep them too lively in winter, unless they are well prepared with good and sufficient protection till all the frosts are over. The practical effect of these observations will be, that many plants which have hitherto only been cultivated by those who have had flues and greenhouses at their command, will now be grown in as great or greater perfection by those who can afford them a dry, though not a warm shelter. One instance may serve as an example: the scarlet geranium, one of the greatest treasures of our parterres, if taken up from the ground in autumn, after the wood is thoroughly ripened, and hung up in a dry room, without any soil attaching to it, will be found ready, the next spring, to start in a new life of vigour and beauty.

One characteristic of our native plants we must mention, that, if we miss in them something of the gorgeousness and lustre of more tropical flowers, we are more than compensated by the delicacy and variety of their perfume; and just as our woods, vocal with the nightingale, the blackbird, and the thrush, can well spare the gaudy feathers of the macaw, so can we resign the oncidiums, the cactuses,

and the ipomaas of the Tropics, for the delicious fragrance of our wild banks of violets, our lilies-ofthe-valley, and our woodbine, or even for the passing whiff of a hawthorn bush, a clover or bean field, or a gorse-common.

With such hedgerow flowers within his reach, and in so favourable a climate, it is not to be wondered that the garden of the English cottager has been remarked among our national distinctions. These may be said to form the foreground of that peculiar English scenery which is filled up by our hedgerows and our parks. The ingenious authoress of 'Leila in England' makes the little new-landed girl exclaim for the want of "fountain-trees" and "green parrots." This is true to nature—but not less so the real enthusiasm of Miss Sedgwick, on her first arriving in England, at the cottage-gardens of the Isle of Wight. Again and again she fixes upon them as the most pleasing and striking feature in a land where everything was new to her. Long may they so continue! It is a trait of which England may well be proud; for it speaks-would we could trace it everywhere!-of peace, and of the leisure, and comfort, and contentedness of those who "shall never cease from the land.”

We would even make gardens in general a test of national prosperity and happiness. As long as the British nobleman continues to take an interest in his avenues and hot-houses-his lady in her conservatories and parterres - the squire overlooks his labourers' allotments-the "squiresses and squirinas"

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BLESSINGS OF GARDENING

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betake themselves and their flowers to the neighbouring horticultural show-the citizen sets up his cucumber-frame in his back-yard-his dame her lilacs and almond-trees in the front-court- the mechanic breeds his prize-competing auriculas-the cottager rears his sun-flowers and Sweet-Williams before his door-and even the collier sports his "posy jacket"-as long, in a word, as this common interest pervades every class of society, so long shall we cling to the hope that our country is destined to outlive all her difficulties and dangers. Not because, like the Peris, we fight with flowers, and build amaranth bowers, and bind our enemies in links of roses--but because all this implies mutual interest and intercourse of every rank, and dependence of one class upon another-because it promotes an interchange of kindnesses and favours-because it speaks of proprietors dwelling on their hereditary acres, and the poorest labourer having an interest in the soilbecause it gives a local attachment, and healthy exercise and innocent recreation, and excites a love of the country and love of our own country, and a spirit of emulation, devoid of bitterness-because it tells of wealth wisely spent, and competence wisely diffused, of taste cultivated, and science practically applied—because, unlike Napoleon's great lie, it does bring "peace to the cottage," while it blesses the palace, and every virtuous home between those wide extremes because it bespeaks the appreciation of what is natural, and simple, and pure-teaches men to set the divine law of excellence above the low

human standard of utility-and because, above all, in the most lovely and bountiful of God's works, it leads them up to Him that made them, not in a mere dumb, inactive admiration of His wonderful designs, but to bless Him that He has given them pleasures beyond their actual necessities-the means of a cheerful countenance, as well as of a strong heart.

Still more-because-if ours be not too rude a step to venture within such hallowed ground-it speaks of a Christian people employed in an occupation which, above all others, is the parable that conveys the deepest truths to them-which daily reads them silent lessons, if their hearts will hear, of the vanity of earthly pomp, of the beauty of heavenly simplicity, and purity, and lowliness of mind, of contentment and unquestioning faith-which sets before them, in the thorns and thistles, a remembrance of their fallen state-in the cedar, and the olive, and the palm-tree, the promise of a better country-which hourly recalls to their mind the Agony and the Burial of Him who made a garden the scene of both, and who bade us mark and consider such things, how they bud, and how they grow," giving us in the vine a type of His Church, and in the fig-tree of His Coming.

Again, we would ask those who think that national amelioration is to be achieved only by dose upon dose of Reform or Red-tapery, where should we now have been without our savings-banks, our allotment system, and our cottage-gardens? And lest we

TO THE POOR MAN.

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should be thought to have been led away from flowers to the more general subject, we will add that, when we see a plot set apart for a rose-bush, and a gilliflower, and a carnation, it is enough for us: if the jasmine and the honeysuckle embower the porch without, we may be sure that there is a potato and a cabbage and an onion for the pot within: if there be not plenty there, at least there is no want; if not happiness, the nearest approach to it in this world

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Gardening not only affords common ground for the high and low, but, like Christianity itself, it offers peculiar blessings and privileges to the poor man, which the very possession of wealth denies. Spitalfields weaver may derive more pleasure from his green box of smoked auriculas" than the lordly possessors of Sion, or Chatsworth, or Stowe, or Alton, from their hundreds of decorated acres; because not only personal superintendence, but actual work, is necessary for the true enjoyment of a garden. We must know our flowers, as well as buy them. Our great-grandmothers, who before they were greatgrandmothers"flirted on the sunny terraces, or strolled along the arched and shaded alleys" of our old manor-houses,

"had their own little garden, where they knew every flower, because they were few; and every name, because they were

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