10 DIRECTIONS FOR PROVIDING TENDER PLANTS, &C. 



William Howitt states that in the outskirts of Nottingham there are 

 no fewer than five thousand gardens, the bulk of which are occupied 

 by the working classes. It is impossible to over-estimate the amount 

 of good done by these garden allotments, affording, as they do, the 

 means of healthful employment and innocent recreation, and pure 

 and peaceful enjoyments to the occupants and their families, and 

 presenting in their attractions a most gratifying contrast to those 

 noisy and demoralizing recreations in which the inhabitants of our 

 crowded towns but too often indulge. Every lover of his species, 

 and every enlightened patriot, must earnestly desire the extension of 

 the system over the whole length and breadth of our country, and 

 horticultural societies would be well entitled to encouragement and 

 support if they had done nothing more than by giving an impulse to 

 the cultivation of this pursuit among the poor, been the means of 

 diffusing peace, and comfort, and contentedness among the homes of 

 those who ' shall never cease out of the land.' " 



ARTICLE IV. 



DIRECTIONS FOR PROVIDING TENDER PLANTS TO ADORN 

 THE FLOWER-GARDEN DURING SUMMER, &c. 



BY LOUISA JOHNSTONE, 01' MAy's TERHACE, DUBLIN. 



The flower-gardens are now, during the summer months, in many 

 cases almost exclusively decorated with exotics ; and too much 

 cannot be said in favour of a practice that enables them to rival, for 

 a time, the sun-lit scenes of happier climes, from which we have 

 lately received many plants so perfectly suited to such a purpose, and 

 so exquisitely lovely when displaying their beauty in masses, that 

 without them our gardens would be a blank indeed. What, in all 

 the range of floral beauty, unlimited as it is, could compensate us for 

 the loss of even that single group, the Verbenas ? The duration of 

 plants used for this purpose, under the mode of culture this practice 

 has introduced, is only annual— as they require to be propagated in 

 autumn or spring, produce their blossoms during the season, and 

 perish at its close. As they cannot be turned out with any certainty 

 of success until the season is far advanced, the small plants require 

 to be planted thick enough to cover the soil, and produce an imme- 

 diate effect. Thus a moderate-sized garden requires a considerable 



