ion for seeds, and make it perhaps the very best and most
productive of all garden soils whatever. A light sandy loam is better to
lie compact in winter, and manured and turned up in early spring. Its
friable nature leaves it always open and light, and at all times in the
absence of frost, accessible to the spade or the hoe. On these accounts,
it is usually the most desirable and convenient soil for the kitchen
garden, and on the whole, generally preferred where either kind may be a
matter simply of choice.

FLOWERS.

Start not, gentle reader! We are not about to inflict upon you a
dissertation on Pelargoniums, Calla-Ethiopias, Japonicas, and such like
unmentionable terms, that bring to your mind the green-house, and
forcing-house, and all the train of expense and vexation attending them;
but we desire to have a short familiar conversation about what is all
around you, or if not around you, should be, and kept there, with very
little pains or labor on your part. Still, if you dislike the subject,
just hand this part of our book over to your excellent wife, or
daughters, or sisters, as the case may be, and we will talk to them
about this matter.

Flowers have their objects, and were made for our use and pleasure;
otherwise, God would never have strewed them, as he has, so bountifully
along our paths, and filled the world with their fragrance and beauty.
Like all else beautiful, which He made, and pronounced "good," flowers
have been objects of admiration and love since man's creation; and their
cultivation has ever been a type of civilization and refinement among
all people who have left written records behind them. Flowers equally
become the cottage and the palace, in their decoration. The humblest
cottager, and the mightiest monarch, have equally admired their beauty
and their odor; and the whole train of mortals between, have devoted a
portion of their time and thoughts to the development of their peculiar
properties.

But let that pass. Plain country people as we are, there are enough of
sufficient variety all around us, to engage our attention, and give us
all that we desire to embellish our homes, and engage the time which we
have to devote to them. Among the wild flowers, in the mountains and
hills of the farthest North, on the margin of their hidden brooks, where

"Floats the scarce-rooted watercress;"

and on their barren sides, the tiny violet and the laurel bloom, each in
their season, with unwonted