THE 



OARDEW 6U1DL 



*JQS 



Apkil, 1858. 



PRING has set in this season with much 

 less of that fickleness which we are wont 

 to assign as one of its chief characteris- 

 tics in this variable climate, and, from 

 the general appearances of things within 

 oiu - own range of observation, and from 

 the accounts which reach us from various 

 parts of the kingdom, a splendid summer 

 may fairly be anticipated. The mild 

 temperature and bright sunshine, which, 

 while we write this, awakens within us the 

 mosthopeful feelings — shared, also, we trust, by our readers generally — may, 

 however, by the time this meets the public eye, have given place to those 

 threatened returns of winter with which our summers are so often ushered 

 in. The experienced cultivator is always on his guard against sudden 

 changes of temperature until the month of May is fairly over ; but it 

 needs many years of experience, and that often dearly purchased, to in- 

 duce in the mind of the cultivator the habit of caution, on which it so 

 much depends whether the sudden return of cold and wet shall utterly 

 cut off or materially injure plants that have been too hastily committed 

 to the ground, or pushed into too forward a condition for the season. 

 A backward spring gives far more peace of mind to the majority of gar- 

 deners than the advent of May weather in the month of March, and 

 when we remember how often we are visited with severe frosts, snow, 

 hail, and cutting north-east winds even up to the very dawn of June, it 

 can be no matter of surprise that at this season of the year there should 

 be some real satisfaction in seeing things " kept back." Rumour says 

 that the Earl of Rosse has predicted a long, hot, and dry summer for the 

 season 1858, and that by no mere guess work, but by logical inferences 

 from true scientific data. Whether Lord Rosse has really entered on the 

 hazardous vocation of a weather prophet, we do not know for a certainty ; 

 but this we do know, that gardeners, whether professional or amateur, pay 

 far less attention to meteorological studies than they should do, for, ex- 

 NO iv. — vol. I. F 



