solid goodness though varying in surface from year to year-pegging down also comes most convenient in giving us good masses of one colour or one flower wherever we most want it.

As the rampant growth of summer begins, keeping order among flowers and weeds will want constant watchfulness and give pretty constant work. Box edgings should be clipped in showery weather.

All the tender annuals may be planted out this month, and plenty of Cupheas and other plants, which will come out nice and showy in the

autumn.

GARDEN OPERATIONS IN JULY.

Garden work is a rotation which scarcely ceases the year round. As we begin to reckon that getting through all the planting out and full arrangement of the beds and borders will give a little leisure, the growing season brings on weeds apace, and rampant growth in vegetation makes constant watchfulness, pegging, training, clipping, staking, and tying necessary. Insects, too, increase apace as soon as the restraining hand of winter is removed, and all these things give work in abundance, and will do so until frost shall again put vegetation, and its devourers, in the dormant stage.

Roses are now showing pretty plainly whether they have the soil they like. No watering will keep those on light and poorish earth in fine order, whereas a little sand and plenty of manure will, to a great extent, overcome the difficulties on stronger land.

If the beds are likely to suffer from drought, the surface may with advantage be mulched with a mixture of leaf mould, and the manure of an old mushroom-bed passed through a coarse riddle. A sprinkling of soot and lime will trouble injurious insects. Moss and cocoa-nut fibre also make good materials for mulching. The especial benefit of this mulching the surface of the borders is, that it tends to produce roots near the surface, and bloom, whereas manure deeper down makes the plants run to luxuriant foliage at the expense of flower. Cocoa-nut fibre and moss both make a nice-looking surface.

Liquid manure may be given to free-growing roses, to bedding plants, and other flowers, on the beds in which it is advisable to promote freer growth. Where mildew shows itself, water the spot where it appears, and sprinkle sulphur over it.

Cuttings of herbaceous plants may be struck under a glass on a north border. Choose the small shoots which are without bloom.

As the season gets on, general tidying in the garden gives plenty of work, and all the climbing plants must have regular attention in necessary pruning and training, keeping under the too rampant growth of the most luxuriant among them. The garden should be gone over regularly at least once a week, to place stakes and sticks wherever they are needed, prune back rampant growth wherever it appears, cut off dead flowers and withered sprays, stir the earth and keep it light and neat, and weed incessantly everywhere. The weeds on the paths alone want constant attention, especially after every little spell of wet weather. The flower-beds, too, the

shrubberies, and all parts of the garden require regular careful hand weeding, or chopping over with the hoe, according to how they are planted. Pay especial attention to any weeds which seem likely to go to seed. Weeds should not be allowed to show themselves in a garden, much more their progeny.

GARDEN OPERATIONS IN AUGUST.

Insects are of all months of the year, but they are especially destructive in warm weather. With the very first warmth, aphides, in shoals and nations, show their unwelcome presence on our roses, geraniums, and almos”, all choice plants. A drying east wind makes them abound, and rain clears them away. Lacking the genial rains to do this work, we must take it in hand ourselves, with careful hand picking or washing them off, which can best be done by taking hold of each spray and washing off the green fly with a small soft painter's brush and clean water or weak quassia water. The next best remedy is fumagating with tobacco smoke. Here again you must call in the assistance of the gardener. Let the plants be dry when he uses the fumigator, and, if it be practicable, cover the head of each with a paper bag before it is operated on. Examine the plants the next morning, and repeat the dose if necessary. Plants in a frame or pit can easily be placed near together and fumigated en masse. Afterwards syringe freely.

The rose fortrix, Tortrix Bergmanniana, is a destructive grub, the butterfly of which is as small as a house fly, and very dark. Hand picking is the best remedy, and this must be done with the greatest care, for, on the least warning, the grub will drop with a fine thread and escape.

The bright and beautiful rose beetle is mischievous in both stages, but luckily it can easily be caught, being large and not very active.

The coccus, or scale insect, chiefly infests greenhouses and indoor plants The females are inert, adhering to leaves or stems; and the males are winged, resembling gnats, but exceedingly minute. Clearing them off with a brush is most effectual, and fumigating with turpentine gets rid of them. Similar in character, and amenable to the same treatment, are the olcander scale, Aspidiolus nerii, which attacks oleanders, acacias, palms, aloes, and suchlike; the rose scale, A. rosæ; the cactus scale, A. echinocactus; and the sweet bay scale, A. lauri.

The caterpillars of many butterflies and moths are destructive in the flower garden, and when the perfect insects can be caught before they lay their eggs, one death will save much killing. Whenever one is found resting quietly on a branch, stem, or leaf, with the wings folded, it is most likely a female about to lay her eggs, and it had better be killed. If a butterfly or moth is found so placed, dead, she will have laid the eggs. which should be searched for and destroyed. As the season advances destroy chrysalises, if you can find them.

The grubs of many beetles are also destructive in flower gardens.

The earwig, Forficula auricularis, is very mischievous among dahlias, pinks. carnations, and many other flowers and their seeds. Earwigs eat at night, and in the day-time hide away in dark recesses, so that they may be caught

by giving them dark hiding-places, in which they may be looked for and destroyed every morning. Small garden-pots, crab and lobster claws, pointed bags of thick dark paper, or any similar contrivance, turned upside down on sticks, will catch a great many.

Slugs, snails, centipedes, and wood lice are all very injurious.

After naming so many things which must be destroyed for the preservation of our flowers, a few words may be said on the more agreeable subject of those denizens of the garden, the lives of which should be spared, because, innocent themselves, they kill destroyers. First among these are frogs and toads; I ought to say toads and frogs, for the toads I believe are more active in eating injurious creatures in the garden-slugs, snails, caterpillars, grubs, moths, and millipedes. By all means spare the lives of the toads and frogs, and let them be defended from injury. Catch one and put him wherever the destructive wood lice abound, and you will find out his

merits.

Moles are valuable in eating noxious grubs, so they should be treated with mercy, although they must be banished from under the lawn. Hedgehogs do good in the garden, eating beetles, snails, and slugs, and sometimes mice, which are very mischievous in eating any seeds that eat nice-bulbs, and some other roots. Young chickens must be kept safe from them. The shrew mouse is an insect-eater, and not a root and seed-eater, like the destructive field mouse. Bats also eat cockchafers (one of the most destructive among insects), moths, and suchlike winged things.

Snakes, slowworms, and lizards are all industrious destroyers of slugs, and do no harm to counterbalance this great good. So by all means let them live. The pretty little ladybird should be respected and cherished as the great enemy and devourer of the aphides. I believe the perfect insects as well as their larvæ eat these pests of the flower garden. The larræ are flattish, fleshy grubs, tapering to the tail; they have no legs, but are very active. Mole crickets disturb the earth a little, but they devour grubs. Glowworms eat snails, and their relative, Drilus flavescens, does the same. All beetles are not to be condemned, as some of them are enemies to the flower garden's worst enemies-rose beetles, cockchafers, wireworms, slugs, and snails (skipjacks are wireworms in another stage). These useful creatures are some of the ground beetles, the tiger beetle, rove beetles (popularly known as cocktails and devil's coach-horses), and two kinds of silpha. One of the weevil family, Anthribus albinus, feeds on the scale insect.

Bees of various kinds, so useful in spreading pollen, do no harm in the garden that I am aware of. The ichneumons and the sand wasp destroy caterpillars in great numbers. Even some caterpillars feed only on noxious weeds, but Mr. Wood says, "It may be assumed that every subterranean larva in a garden is obnoxious, and may safely be destroyed." The grubs of the lace-wing fly and the hawk fly feed entirely on spiders. Spiders also may be spared.

These few remarks on insects and other garden "friends and foes" extend over all the months between the first gleams of warmth and the time when insect depredations are curbed by winter frosts.

August work in the garden embraces minute attention to order in all departments-pruning, tying, restraining, taking cuttings as good ones present themselves, weeding beds, and paths, and watering with judgment when it is necessary

GARDEN OPERATIONS IN SEPTEMBER.

To retain the flower beds in continued beauty it is most important to cut all withered flowers, and to cut in stems of too rampant a growth whenever it can be done without giving a check. Also be careful to gather seed-pods before they swell, wherever neglect in gathering dead flowers has allowed them to form. Constant little attention of this kind to the flower beds will keep them gay until quite late in the year.

The plants which are intended to produce seed should not be allowed to go on until the best bloom is past; but the finest flower on the finest plant should be marked while in its full prime, at whatever season that may occur. The plant should then have plenty of room given it, a mulching of manure if it be considered advisable, and all the flowers not wanted for seed should be plucked to give full strength to the few. A dry day should be carefully chosen for gathering seed. As soon as the seed is taken, some Clarkias, Nemophilas, Collinsias, and Candytufts may be sown now, and the plants kept through the winter, as their seed never produces such fine plants as when it is sown as soon as it is ripe. Also sow Godetias, Lupinus Nanus, Gilia tricolour, Leptosiphon androsaceus and Densiflora, and Viscaria oculata. Seed of Ranunculuses and the Cruciferæ will keep four years. Mignonette seed will do several years old; Wallflower may be two years old; Sweet Peas and Lupines should be used at one year old. Larkspur will not do well after the second year. Prince's feather and Poppies will keep several years. As a rule, however, it is better not to depend on old stock.

As the old hotbeds of the year are done with, and done away with, put up good reserve heaps of composts of different kinds, fit for all choice plants for potting and for making cuttings, taking care to mix them well, to turn them over to mellow, to pick out grubs and wireworms, and to shelter them from wet. Much of the success of next year's flowers will depend on having good stores of composts of various kinds to go to for their use. Do not forget a store of good turfy loam. The making of cuttings for good stores of plants must be actively carried on. Commence with white, scarlet, and purple Verbenas, taking nice stubby side shoots. Lots of such cuttings may be taken without materially interfering with the flowering plants. Fill 3-inch pots quite full of the cuttings, place them on ashes or sand with a frame over them, and they can be shifted into larger pots in January or February; top them for cuttings if more are wanted then. After these may follow the Heliotropes and plants of that kind, later scarlet Geraniums, and in October Calceolarias.

This month and the following, beds will have to be made for different choice flowers which are planted in autumn, and many bulbs may be put in. At the end of the month frost must be watched for with care. The Dahlias

had better be earthed up over their crowns, that they may not be caught and spoiled by sudden frost.

The choicer Geraniums had better be taken up and potted at the first threatening of frost, and put in a dry place where they will be safe from frost. If they can be placed on gentle bottom heat in a pit they will soon be established, and can then be stored away in winter quarters. Where it is necessary to take up showy tender plants rather early, their place can be supplied with Chrysanthemums coming forward, and any spare winterblooming plants there may be in reserve.

Anne Boleyn Pinks, Cloves, and Carnations will flower nicely in autumn and winter under glass, almost if not quite without heat, if they are prevented blooming in summer by nipping off the flower stems as they appear.

Purchases of bulbs should be made in good time to prevent disappointment from indifferent supply from a well-picked over stock, of which we have no right to complain if it arises from our own remissness in purchasing. Evergreens are transplanted this month, that the trees or shrubs may make fresh roots before the check of winter. If moved in September, they will be much less likely to suffer in the spring than if the work is delayed. Deciduous trees and shrubs must, of course, not be removed until they have lost their leaves. Many plants should be shifted now, that they may make root before winter. All the autumn-flowering plants will require constant attention in putting stakes, sticks, and ties, as not a flower now must be lost for want of care.

Cut off dead flowers and attend to the neatness of the beds and borders. Gather ripe seeds and sow some kinds. Make collections of composts for choice plants. Plant cuttings; make beds for bulbs and choice flowers. Earth over the crowns of Dahlias. Watch for early frost, to save tender plants.

GARDEN OPERATIONS IN OCTOBER.

When October begins frost in real earnest must be expected at any time, and prepared for. After the foliage of the Dahlias is cut down, they may remain a short time still in the ground, and then the roots must be taken up. Preparation must be made for protecting tender plants and climbers, as it may become necessary to defend them any night with very short notice. Preparation of protective materials may employ bad days; look over and arrange mats of all kinds, and make any covers of reed, straw, &c., that may be useful. Hardy creepers may be made snug by neat close training, and have rampant straggling sprays removed Do the pruning of tender sorts at twice or thrice. Taking up and potting all choice plants which frost would nurt must be systematically proceeded with. The newly-potted Geraniums and other plants should, if possible, be placed on mild bottom heat, to start the roots before being put by in winter quarters. If Chrysanthemums and some other plants in flower are protected from the first frosts, they may yet go on and bloom and look gay for a long time. Cut down Hollyhocks, and daub tar on the cut stems to keep out wet.

'ake up all the old scarlet Geraniums there can possibly be found winter