GARDENING FOR CHILDREN. 
3G1 
be increased by merely parting them when 
they are too big for their places. By simply 
attending to these hints the children of a 
family or the youths at a school may in one 
year become masters of certain garden ope- 
rations, that will be familiar to them as long 
as they live ; and year after year, as their 
minds expand, they will seek eagerly for 
further knowledge. What they will have 
acquired in one season will be sound, and the 
limited knowledge they acquire will be a good 
foundation for whatever may be added to it ; 
nay, if they never learned any more but from 
their own observation, they will have had an 
especial service rendered even by this limited 
teaching. But there is no reason why you 
should not take them through the kitchen 
garden to see others work, or even occa- 
sionally to do a little themselves, although 
their own plot must, from its limited size, be 
only a flower garden ; for in the kitchen garden 
they will see operations on the ground, and 
changes of crops going on at all times of the 
year, while their own must be chiefly in the 
spring and fall. They will know from obser- 
vation that the same process which raises a 
China aster will produce a cabbage; the sowing, 
the cleaning, watering, transplanting are all the 
same. The mere difference of distances is learned 
soon. The difference of seasons may be taught 
as a task in spelling or reading a catechism ; 
but families and schools that will attend to 
the foregoing, will have good cause to be 
satisfied that gardening for children is one of 
the most gratifying and inexhaustible sources 
of profitable occupation. 
Such are some of our notions as to the best 
method of initiating the young gardener into 
the practice of this delightful and healthful 
recreation. The little volume before us takes 
nearly the same view of the subject. This 
second edition is greatly improved in the ar- 
rangement of its contents ; and we observe 
a considerable addition to the number of illus- 
trations. The text has also evidently under- 
gone revision, and not without advantage. 
We shall borrow a few illustrative extracts, 
with the cuts that accompany them : — 
DWARF LUPINE. 
This is one of the prettiest of the lupines, 
bearing leaves cut so as to somewhat resem- 
ble one's expanded fingers, and spikes of what 
are called butterfly-shaped flowers. This kind 
is about afoot in height, and bears long spikes 
of blue flowers. Sow them where the plants 
are to remain. 
CHINA ASTER. 
These are gay star-like flowers, growing a 
foot or fifteen inches high, upright, but 
spreading when they once begin to branch. 
The original has a single flower, in shape like 
a daisy ; but there is a great variety in gar- 
dens, and the double and full-quilled sorts 
only are prized. 
Dwarf Lupine. 
The colours are various ; not only are 
there all shades of red and blue, both of vyhich 
appear mixed with white, but the white is 
mixed singly with all the shades ; so that the 
China Aster. 
Autumn garden is indebted to this flower for 
a good deal of its gaiety and brilliant effect. 
The Germans have raised many varieties, 
which are sold under the name of German 
asters ; and the imported seeds generally 
