December 2. THE COTTAGE GARDENED. 1C7 
1 
I and said, “ Sir, I liad a veiy strange dream last night. I 
I dreamed that one of us had oiir hand smashed in the ’uhine.” 
I Uf course no notice was taken of this, except, perhaps, a 
1 smile; hut the man himself thought a good deal about it, 
i and kept as much at a distance from the machine as he 
! possibly could. In the course of the day the wheel wanted 
j greasing, and the farmer’s head-man, or bailiff, prepared to 
I do it. The horses were going on; and on being spoken to 
of the danger, the bailiff' said, “ Oh, I can’t spare the time; 
1 can do it while they go on; I can’t waste time while I’m 
greasing the wheel.” So on went the horses, and the bailiff 
crept between them to the axle of the machine, where the 
grease was to be applied. The man was very careful of his 
hand as he put the grease in ; but while thinking of the one, 
he totally forgot the other. His left hand was thoughtlessly 
placed on a part of the machine, which caught it, and cruslied 
it in an instant! Bleeding, and in agonies, the poor man 
was taken up, as soon as the horses could be stopped, and 
carried to bed. The surgeon was summoned, and gave it 
as his decided opinion that the hand must be taken off and 
part of the arm also. The poor fellow was so distressed at 
the idea of losing a hand, which supplied him with bread, 
that he begged for further advice, which was cheerfully 
granted; and he chose the surgeon whose opinion he should 
like to have. He came; but alas ! there was no liope; the 
hand must be taken off just below the elbow ; nothing else 
could possibly save his life. The operation accordingly took 
place; and the man, who rose up in the morning in health 
and strength, and began his daily work v,’ith all his usual 
vigour and light-heartedness, when evening closed in lay on 
the bed of suffering, deprived of a limb, and disabled for ever 
from gaining his bread in the way in which alone he was fitted 
to do it. One moment’s heedless folly has brought the 
bitter repentance of a whole life. The five or six minutes, 
which could not be spared to take a wise and rational 
precaution, have caused days and weeks of suffering, of 
loss of time, and of heavy self-reproach—hardest of all to 
bear. What must be the thoughts of a poor man, lying 
helpless and crippled for life, when he thinks that his own 
mad stupidity has laid him there? When he thinks that 
he needed not to have done so foolishly—that the very boy 
who was driving the horses must have known his danger, 
and would not have done the same? Oh, how he must 
mom’n and lament, and wish he had not been a fool, when 
it is too late ; when his poor crushed band is off and buried, 
and nothing can be done but to bear the loss, and pray for 
grace to profit by the lesson, and that the trial may be 
sanctified to him! 
I hope and trust that this poor man’s accident may be a 
warning to those of my readers who are headstrong and 
daring. Every day of oiu- lives we see instances of 
thoughtless, reckless risk; and, perhaps, few of us have 
not been guilty of some one or more ourselves. It is not 
weak or wicked to be cautious ; it is so, when we persist 
in doing a dangerous thing which need not be done. It 
was not duty that obliged this poor fellow to grease the 
wheel while the horses were going on; nor is it duty that 
leads us often into mischief. We are very well aware that 
wo are ready enough to get away from duty when it leads 
us into pciilous places; we can often find a good excuse for 
escaping Iheu —for being prudent and cautious then. It is 
our own self-wiU and hot-headedness that runs away with 
us, and gives us reason to repent, often to the end of our 
lives. 
I must say a word more upon this occurrence, before I 
address a startling question to my readers. The dream— 
it was a striking and remarkable one. Such things have 
been before. We know that under the Old Testament 
dispensation God appeared unto men in dreams, and 
many wonderful events were revealed in visions during 
sleep. But those days have passed away; and we have no 
Scriptural warrant for expecting revelations by means of 
dreams. Still, the Lord works in whatever way He pleases ; 
and without ignorantly and blindly attending to our 
dreams, as many do, we wouhl not totally set them aside, 
or laugh contemptuously at them; for what tlie Lord has 
used as an instrument to work His will should be no 
j matter of scorn to tis. In this case, the fact occurred, and 
I I do not ever remember to have heard of so striking a 
j coincidence before. 
And now, one question before I close my paper. How 
are we greasing ear wheels ? We are all pressing forwards 
to somethinij ; but are we greasing our wheels for time, or 
for eternity! If we cannot spare time from our eai'thly 
business to seek “ the kingdom of God and his righteous¬ 
ness,”—to take “ oil in the vessels with oiu" lamps,"—we shall 
lose that wliich is tj’orth more than a right hand—we shall 
‘Gostf our own souls.” We shall find ourselves caught and 
entangled in a snare that will crush us to all eternity, from 
which there is no deliverance and no hope. We shall look 
back from the bottomless pit with weeping and wailing and 
gnashing of teeth, upon the senseless folly, the raving mad¬ 
ness, that chose “ the iileasures of sin for a season,” instead 
of the lasting glories at “ the right hand of God.” 
Headers! we are all of us thrashing; thrashing for time, 
or for eternity; and One speaks to us in plainer words than 
those of a dream, “ Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand.” Let the poor bailiff, on his sick-bed, teach us a 
mighty truth. We may be “in the morning like grass that 
groweth up;” in the evening “we may be cut down and 
withered.” Let each of us ask our our own heart this great 
and startling question—How are we greasing our wheels ? 
A FEW OF THE BEST DAPHNES. 
In order to give an account of these, I must include the 
Daphne odora and its varieties, for these are beautiful, and 
deserve for winter nosegays a place wherever room can be 
spared for them. They are excellent to plant out in large 
conservatories, where they are just at home, although almost 
hardy enough to stand out under a warm wall or corner, 
with a little protection during severe weather in winter. 
They do well, also, wintered in a pit or frame, where the 
Ijlauts are not too largo for such places. 
This species generally begins flowering in January, and 
continues more or less in flower until May. No plant is 
more] desirable for nosegays; it is so very sweet, and con¬ 
tinues so long in perfect beauty after being cut for this pur¬ 
pose. I have no doubt it would be rooted very w'ell from 
cuttings by those who have proper places for this work, but 
they are more commonly grafted upon the common spurge 
laurel, D. laureola. Several years ago, when I first saw the 
variety, D. odora rubra, I was so much struck with it, that of 
course I wanted it in some way or other, and my friend who 
possessed it said, I have young plants of the D. laureola in 
pots, and I will put you on one graft; he did so; he took off 
a scion with two crowns or a forked top, and inserted it into 
the pot by the side the stock it was to be worked upon, and 
inarched it to the stock just below the fork, and placed it in 
one of his heated pits, where it soon united; and the plant 
came to my hands with its forked top, and standing upon 
two legs as it were. It so stands now, and a fine specimen 
it is, too, but the stock on which the scion was inarched is 
but a very little larger now than when the scion was put on, 
whilst the scion is nearly three times the size of the stock 
at the present time. I am not inferring from this circum¬ 
stance that many of the Daphnes might not be raised from 
cuttings, for I have known the D. pontica, and others, to be 
raised from cuttings, thu-ty years ago, under a north wall, 
under hand-glasses. 
There is another Yraiotj caliled D. odora varici/nla; but I 
consider D. odora. rubra the best. 
The Hardy Kinds arc as follows :— Daphne hybrida, or, as 
it is most generally known by the name of D. dauphinii, 
Dauphin’s Daphne. This is one of the most desirable plants 
that any garden, great or small, can possess. It is a beau¬ 
tiful plant to grow against a south wall or warm corner. It 
does well as a shrub in the open border, and from the 
goodness of the plant, it is worth a place, planted out in a 
conservatory, where it would be seen in bloom nearly the 
whole year, more or less. 
Wo have a large plant of this upon a conservative wall 
covering a space of about five feet by five to six feet. It is 
not nailed in like a Reach-tree, but just fastened up, suffi¬ 
cient to secure it firmly to the wall, with a fine thicket of 
breastwood over the face of the whole tree, protruding about 
from six to nine inches from the wall. It seldom re(juiros 
any pruning more than it gets by being so much cut for 
nosegays, as its llower.s are very sweet-scented. Nearly 
