THE CALENDAR. 



163 



Tidiness is the first point of comfort in a pleasure- 

 ground ; after rightsiding everything, try what show you 

 can make with evergreens and Christmas favourites. 

 What is the condition of your hepaticas, winter aconites, 

 snowdrops, crocuses, Christmas roses, and Mediterra- 

 nean heaths ? Have you the Winter Jessamine, the 

 Chimonanthus fragrans, and the Yernal Squill ? Will 

 you want any cinerarias, Chinese primroses, forced 

 bulbs, or camellias, for the drawing-room ? You may 

 prune now hardy roses, — the moss, Provence, Gal- 

 lica, damask, Scotch, crimson perpetuals, and other 

 equally robust kinds ; leave the rest, to see how they 

 look at the end of February. Moss is a good covering 

 for the roots of tender things. Are your alterations 

 nearly finished r Dress well, and dig deep, beds that 

 have been hard cropped with flowers during the current- 

 year ; the parterre must have manure and rotation of 

 crops, as well as the wheat-field. Cover your frames 

 with mats and boards, if the frost comes sharp. Divide 

 and transplant stools of herbaceous perennials, such as 

 rockets and salvias, which have already flowered finely, 

 and have been admired, and which will not bloom finely 

 nor be admired twice in the same place ; if you don't, 

 where you once had a beauty, you will next time have a 

 symbol of shabbiness and neglect. Boots grow now, 

 though leaves may grow little, or not at all ; a plant will 

 bloom all the better if, in spring, it finds itself provided 

 with a nice tuft of fibrous roots, than if, when spring 

 i3 arrived, those desirable fibres are still to be formed. 

 Sort your seeds ; look over your tubers ; exchange with 

 your neighbours ; study your Chronicle ; sing the air of 

 "Away with melancholy!" to the words of "Away 

 with damp and mildew ! " Eestrain rampant stragglers, 

 and throw them into flower by roctf-pruning, leaving the 

 tops much as they are. Manufacture heath-mould for 

 your Americans, if none is to be had within reasonable 

 carting distance. Pay frequent visits to your specimen- 

 plants, whether in the open air or under shelter ; large 

 myrtles, in tubs, may be wintered in a coach-house, if 



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