31 4 General Notice?. 



would wish them to devote a portion of every clay, in favourable weather in 

 the open air, and in unfavourable weather under a veranda or in a green-house, 

 to some of the lighter operations of gardening, for health's sake, and for giving 

 a zest to in-door enjoyments. Cutting out weeds with a light spud, which 

 does not require stooping ; stirring the surface with a light two-pronged 

 spud, the prongs of which need not be much larger than those of a carving- 

 fork, and the handle of willow or poplar, or cane not thicker than a fishing- 

 rod ; and pruning, with the sliding-shears, shrubs from 3 to 7 ft, high, are 

 operations which do not require stooping, and which may be performed 

 during the hottest sunshine, by the use of an Epinal hat, or a broad-brim- 

 med straw hat, or other light broad-brimmed hat of any sort. Thinning out 

 and tying up herbaceous plants and low shrubs; tying up climbers and 

 twiners, and tying the shoots of trained trees to trellises or to nails, with eyes 

 fixed in the walls ; cutting off decayed flowers, flower-stems, withered roses, 

 and dead points of shoots and leaves ; and pruning shrubs under 3 ft. high, 

 require stooping, and are fit operations for the mornings and evenings, and 

 for cloudy weather. Watering is best performed in the evening ; and, if 

 any lady wishes to do this in a masterly manner, she ought to have one of 

 Siebe's rotatory garden-engines, fitted up with awheel and handles like a 

 wheelbarrow: this she may wheel along the walks; and, by an opera- 

 tion not too severe for a healthy young woman, and which would add 

 greatly to the strength of her arms and the tranquillity of her nights, throw 

 the water from 30 to 40 ft. in every direction. We would much rather see 

 ladies at these operations common to all countries, than see them shifting 

 and otherwise working with sickly hot-house plants in pots, which cannot 

 be done well without more or less affecting the hands. Watering with a 

 light or small-sized Reid's syringe, or Macdougal's syringe, would not, per- 

 haps, be an unfitting operation for a lady ; but the best of all may be 

 watering with a neat little green flower-pot, the supply of water being near 

 at hand, and obtained from a cock, on no account by dipping, or carried 

 to her by some attendant friend or maid. The care and watering of neat 

 little alpine plants in pots is what most ladies are very fond of; and one 

 of the principal enjoyments of city ladies, who know plants only or chiefly 

 as pictures, consists in performing this operation. The plants to be pre- 

 sented to such amateurs ought to be plants that require water at least once 

 a day, and that grow fast to require tying up, and make frequent dead leaves 

 to require picking and dressing. The principle is, something to be taken 

 care of, and to care for and depend on us ; something that requires labour, 

 the beginning and ending of all improvement and enjoyment. Having said 

 so much respecting garden operations fit for ladies, we shall add that we 

 should feel extremely obliged to any lady living in a district much in the 

 trade of working in straw, if she would undertake to get us a few Epinal 

 hats, manufactured, and sent to Cormack and Sinclair's Viridarium (p. 379.) 

 for sale. These hats do not require the straw to be platted, and they would 

 come, we think, exceedingly cheap, and fit both for rich and poor. We will 

 send our pattern hat to the first lady who writes that she will undertake 

 this service for her countrywomen. To recur to the sliding-shears, they 

 may be had through any ironmonger or seedsman. — Cond. 



Hovea purpurea Sweet Fl. Aust. t. 13. — Our first knowledge of this 

 beautiful species of Hovea is derived from the above-cited work (the dis- 

 continuance of which must be regretted by every botanist and cultivator), 

 where a good figure and detailed description may be seen ; but, as necessa- 

 rily only a solitary branch is there displayed, it does not convey a correct 

 idea of the growth and beautiful appearance of the species. My plant is 

 erect, with numerous branches, about 3| ft. in height, presenting a fine 

 bushy shrub from the ground upwards, which is now in a temperature of 

 50° to 55°, profusely covered with elegant, pale-purple, odoriferous flowers. 

 It is situated among other plants in a small pit 3 ft. deep, with about a foot 



