i 4 4 MORE POT-POURRI 



Christmas-time to stick about the room in empty vases, 

 round pictures, etc. But they hardly ever take the 

 trouble to peel their stalks and put them in water, though 

 especially with holly this makes all the difference as 

 regards the retaining of its freshness ; and if arranged in a 

 glass, not too thickly, it looks much more beautiful, and 

 does not acquire a dusty, degraded appearance before New 

 Year's Day. I cannot bear to see the poor evergreens 

 shrivelling in the hot rooms. We used to have hardly 

 any Holly berries in the garden here, but by judicious 

 pruning in February we now get quantities of a very fine 

 kind. 



One of my many correspondents wrote : ' If you are 

 interested in the lighting of country houses, I can recom- 

 mend the acetylene gas which our gardener makes for us. 

 We have used it for over a year, and find it quite charming 

 a brilliant light, delightful to read by, cool, clean, and 

 harmless to silver, flowers, and clothes, and safe, so far as 

 our experience goes. Ours is the " pure acetylene " made 

 by Raoul Picket's patent, and not the explosive kind.' 



December %%nd. After all the fine mild weather I have 

 been mentioning, it suddenly began to freeze, with hard, 

 cold, moonlight nights. So to-day I thought of my little 

 birds. I now find it prettier and less trouble, instead of 

 hanging the string with cocoanut and suet from a window 

 or a stiff cross-bar, to arrange it in the following way : 

 I cut a big branch, lopping it more or less, and push it 

 through the hole of a French iron garden-table that I 

 happen to have which holds an umbrella in summer. On 

 the other side of the house I stick a similar branch into 

 the ground. On these I hang, Christmas-tree fashion, 

 some pieces of suet and a tallow candle the old ' dip ' a 

 cocoanut with a hole cut, not at the bottom as I recom- 

 mended before, but in the side, large enough for the 

 Tom-tits to sit on the edge and peck inside, and yet 



