JANUARY. ; 7 
week upon week, to glow with undiminished splendour, and make the 
air heavy with exhaustless odours. Would not our eyes be dazzled 
into weariness, aching and winking, as when in our early youth we 
overdid them with our new kaleidoscope? Would not our nostrils 
finally he enforced to entreat the intervention of our forefingers and 
thumbs, to supplicate the presence of our pocket-handkerchief, lest we 
should die of aromatic pain ? 
Our powers of appreciating the beautiful are finite, soon tire, and 
need repose. What appetites we bring home from the loveliest scenery ! 
How thirsty we were at Tintern! How we rush from the pre- 
Raphaelite glories of the exhibition to our strawberries and iced cream 
at Grange’s! How palatable the oysters, how creamy the stout, how 
delightfully appropriate the bread and butter, when we have attended 
a spectacle at the Princess's, 
Hence, horticulturally, I can welcome winter with gladness, and can 
thoroughly enjoy its calm repose. I can, with perfect equanimity, bid 
farewell to my Chrysanthemums (though they are 4 feet in diameter), 
and can pleasantly drink to our next merry meeting in the silver cup 
which they have won. I want no conservatory, gay with Camellias, 
with the Epacris, the Primula, and the Rose; I desire to rest and 
think. I can bide my ttme, patiently and thankfully, until the spring- 
light wakes my Cinerarias to bloom, and bids my Hyacinths yield their 
poesy of fragrance. My appetite craves for no stimulants, and asks no 
artificial food. It desires to say Grace, and to rest, that it may be 
hungry again and healthful, when Nature shall prepare the feast. 
If ever I grow aweary, aweary of my leaflessness and clayitude, 
good winter hath two ministers, Hope and Memory, who never fail to 
cheer. I have but to close my eyes, and Memory displays once more 
before me those brilliant banks of Azaleas and Rhododendrons which 
glowed last spring at Sydenham and ‘the. Park;” I gaze again upon 
the grand Geraniums of Slough; I scent the Roses which brightened 
up the square of Hanover, and made the admiring Londoner forget his 
Thames. Or Hope speaks musically of the future; points to those 
dear little cuttings, so bravely upright in their tiny thumb pots, so 
charmingly conceited at having roots of their own, and tells of their 
growth and glory. 
And I never realise more pleasantly, or appreciate more gratefully, 
this welcome rest and happy thoughtfulness of winter, than at the 
meetings of our little society, which we call ‘“ The Stu of Spades.” 
Come with me, reader, into our club-room, and let me introduce you 
to the members. 
That club-room on this occasion (for we vary our place of meeting) 
is my garden-house, a warm and cosy chamber, I can tell you, or what 
would happen to those seed-bags hanging around, or to those tubers 
of the Dahlia, piled, dry and dormant, in the background? ‘The 
adjuncts of the apartment might not, perhaps, impress any but a floral 
mind with an idea of beauty. There is a potting-bench beneath the 
closely-shuttered window, with a trowel protruding from such well- 
matured and mellow soil, that I have heard my gardener declare it to 
be ‘as rich as a plum-pudding.” Hard by, two bulky bags of sand 
