OCTOBER 
To many is the saddest month in the year ; it presents 
to them nothing but dead and dying forms of vegetable 
life. But it is only in theory that it is a sad month, for, 
although the harvests are gathered in, the fields now 
bare of summer’s verdure, the woods in the first stages 
of leafy decay, the birds gone to more genial cli¬ 
mates, the garden rusty and full of seedy or frost-stricken 
flowers, and everything telling of the departure of 
genial summer and the approach of cliil winter, there 
is an opposite side to tins gloomy picture. No month is 
so full of rich and varied attractions, and none offers 
gratification and satisfaction to the divers tastes of so 
many admirers. We should not see the dying flower, 
but the ripened seed-pod with its hundreds of infant 
forms which we will tend in the cradle of our thoughts 
until the dawn of spring, when they will bring to us a 
hundred joys for every sorrow we had for the loss of 
the parent plant. And still there is more life than death 
in the garden, field and forest in October. To the eyes 
of all who love nature, October has cheer and delight; 
it presents not decay and death, but a rich display of 
nature’s choicest beauties. Every tree is now dressed 
in its most glowing attire; it seems as though all the 
sun’s warmth and the eai*th’s richness had been collected 
and absorbed, only to be returned infinitely increased 
and improved. Change is manifest everywhere. The 
air feels its duties enlarged, and is no longer sultry and 
stifled, but transformed into blue and purple mists that 
envelop the hills and fill the valleys. The hedge-rows 
that all summer long have been the home of the cat¬ 
bird and the thrush, shielding them by its thick verdure, 
are now radiant with the Golden-rod, the Aster and the 
Gentian. 
The richest beauty of October, however, is to be seen 
in the Birches, Maples, Chestnuts and Oaks; the Cedars 
festooned with the Woodbine, all blended together, and 
yet made more brilliant by the purple atmosphere, the 
spirit of beauty in color grows more and more wonder¬ 
ful and magnificent, till the splendors of the earth rival 
those of the sunset. It seems as if the consciousness of 
the long sleep of winter, now near at hand, had roused 
the material world to show its gratitude to its Lord and 
Master for His constant care and kindness—for the 
gentle rains and winds of spring—for the hot and stim¬ 
ulating suns of summer—for the bounteous harvests of 
autumn—in one resounding hallelujah, in whose song 
the voice of the smallest flower is not lost, though 
blended with the mighty tones of forest and mountain. 
But we must not forget our gardens, large or small; 
they will not take care of themselves; if neglected now, 
our only crop next year will be regrets. If any bulbs 
or tubers, that will not endure the rigors of winter, yet 
remain in the ground, let them be taken up and care¬ 
fully put away in some safe place, secure from frost 
and mice. Plantings of Hyacinths and other bulbs for 
early spring flowers should no longer be deferred. Let 
the ground be put in the best possible condition while it 
is yet dry and fit to work. Bulbs do not want to be 
planted in mud ; on the contrary, in light, dry earth. 
Protect all beds of bulbs from frost. It is a great mis¬ 
take to neglect this important work because Dutch 
Bulbs are considered hardy. Hardy they may be, as 
they will flower after having been frozen, but the dif¬ 
ference between the flowers of bulbs which have been 
protected by a good mulching, and those which have 
not, is so great, that protection should never be neg¬ 
lected. 
Much of the work usually left until early spring 
should be done in October. Flower beds should be dug 
deeply and manured heavily: and, if any changes in 
planting are contemplated, now is the proper time to' 
make them. The best way is to have a plan of the 
flower-beds sketched on paper, and to make all the ar¬ 
rangements for plantipg each bed the succeeding season 
while the effects of the present arrangement are still 
visible. Hence, it will be easier to correct anything that 
appears objectionable, and to judge what would be the 
effect of any alterations that may suggest themselves. 
These changes may be proceeded with as soon as leisure 
permits, and as fast as the beds become vacant. No 
work in the garden, that can possibly be done now, 
should ever be passed over until the spring months, 
when there is so much work of every kind which needs 
attention. Paint the garden of the coming season on 
the imagination now, and work out the pattern. 
There is no other method in good gardening; the garden 
must be made in the heart, then on paper, and finally in 
the earth. An enclosure of a given quantity of ground 
is by no means a garden, any more than a dwelling- 
house is a home. Home is something more than a 
house ; it is where the soul lives ; and the garden is but 
one of the family rooms. It is not a spot where we are 
compelled to work for support; on the contrary, it is an 
open-air palace, filled with the beautiful and pure in 
nature. It is one of God’s drawing-rooms of which man 
has the privilege of looking after. And it is, indeed, a 
privilege to enjoy so much of the beautiful, where the 
care of it brings so many other blessings. It is by no 
means the size of the garden, or how it may appear to 
others, that makes it beautiful; it is the love you have 
for it, and how it fills the heart’s desire. There is often, 
in a broken pitcher, a more beautiful garden than 
wealth ever designed, because it contains the object of 
one’s love. 
WEEDS. 
Every person who cultivates the ground has an in¬ 
terest in weeds, but it is usually confined to the best 
methods of destroying them, rather than in making 
them objects of study and research, yet the history of 
the migrations, hemes, habits and uses of our common 
weeds is a very interesting one and well repays inves¬ 
tigation. 
Most of these troublesome plants are foreigners, which 
