12 
HINTS TO AMATEURS. 
As the present is a leisure season, it offers a good oppor¬ 
tunity for a few remarks on several subjects of much consequence 
to the proper keeping of a garden, but which are too frequently 
passed over in the hurry of the busy period of the season. The 
first point to be insisted on is the proper labelling of all plants, 
whether growing in pots or otherwise, and no time is so fit as 
the present. 
One of the greatest of the many intellectual pleasures derivable 
from plants is the knowledgeof theirseveral names, and from them 
by reference to their various habitats and geographical distribu¬ 
tion; thus by the simple act of placing labels to plants a wide 
field of pleasurable reflection is open to the inquiring mind, 
which, in the generality of cases, is entirely lost where this is 
neglected; for although most persons have a desire to know 
something of the plant before them, yet it is not every one who 
possesses or cultivates them that is sufficiently conversant to be 
at all times ready to answer all questions. 
This applies not only to stove or greenhouse plants but may 
be extended to the common trees and shrubs, and from them to 
the herbaceous perennial, biennial, and annual plants and flowers 
which constitute every garden. A much greater interest would 
be imparted to the commonest of shrubs if the name and, when 
exotic, the country of which it is a native, were written on a 
label and placed so as to be easily read ; and this the veriest 
tyro may contrive to do with the aid of a friend and almost any 
botanical catalogue. 
Another subject requiring attention, and not often attended 
to, relates to forcing bulbs and other flowers, roots, and plants. 
Most growers, however small, have their hyacinths and tulips to 
force, and these after potting are generally placed at once in 
heat considered necessary to bloom them ; this is not natural; 
every plant that is desired to produce its flowers at an earlier 
period than is natural to it requires three separate stages of 
treatment, if we may so term it; the first to correspond with 
winter when the plant should be out of doors ; the second, to 
agree with the spring, when a cold frame is necessary for it that 
