CALENDAR. 
unsuitable for the sowing of sainfoin and of chicory. 
In the early and middle parts of the month, thorough 
tillage should be given in preparation for potatoes ; 
and toward the end of the month, or as the last of 
the great spring operations of sowing and planting, 
the potatoes should be planted. April is the proper 
time for the planting of autumnal sown cabbages, for 
the drill-sowing of cabbages in the situations in which 
they are to remain, and for the spring sowing of grass 
seeds; and it is also not unsuitable for the sowing of 
flax. 
The labours of the barn, for the supply of the 
market and the farm-yard, require still to be con- 
tinued. Land intended for buckwheat in May or 
June should now be well ploughed and harrowed. 
Land intended for turnips should, in this month, first be 
scuffed, next be allowed a little rest, and next receive 
sufficient harrowings to make all the seeds of weeds 
grow, in order that the plants of them may be de- 
stroyed by next month’s tillage. All work in woods 
should now be over, and all hedge-work brought to 
a close. Grass lands which were stone-picked in 
last month, should now be rolled, to make them level 
for the scythe. Any mason-work which a farmer 
may require to perform on his own account, should 
be commenced in April. 
The Kitchen Garden.—The produce of the natural 
ground of the kitchen garden available for April is 
very nearly the same as that for March; and the 
forced produce consists principally of potatoes, kid- 
ney-beans, rhubarb, carrots, asparagus, sea- kale, 
mushrooms, purslane, lettuces, and cucumbers.—In 
April, sow, in the open ground, kidney-beans, tur- 
nips, rhubard, American cress, curled borecole, cab- 
bages, savoys, broccoli, onions, carrots, parsnips, 
skerret, salsafy, scorzonera, angelica, lovage, clary, 
caraway, scurvy-grass; sow, if omitted in March, or 
if more be wanted, hyssop, marjoram, thyme, savory, 
bugloss, borage, marigold, dill, fennel, sorrel, bur- 
net, and other similar plants; make successional 
sowings of cresses, mustard, radish, rape, lettuce, 
spinach, beet, beans, and pease; sow on slight hot- 
beds, capsicum, love-apple, basil, purslane, gourds, 
pumpkins, melons, and cucumbers; make some hot- 
beds for raising a last succession of melons and cu- 
cumbers, and others for planting out previous sow- 
ings under bell or hand glasses; maintain a proper 
and regular heat in the beds of advancing melons and 
cucumbers; transplant Cos and Silesia lettuces, cab- 
bages, savoys, borecoles, celery, and chamomile ; 
plant sea-kale, balm, chamomile, pennyroyal, mint, 
tarragon, tansy, chives, burnet, marjoram, and po- 
tatoes; earth up early cauliflowers growing under 
hand glasses; dress and plant artichokes; destroy 
weeds; and sweep away earthworms, slugs, and 
snails either by sprinklings with lime-water, or by 
abandoning the garden once or twice a-week to a 
flock of hungry ducks. 
The Fruit Garden.—The home-grown fruit avail- 
able for use in April comprises three or four pre- 
served kinds from last year, green gooseberries, and 
some others for tarts, and dessert strawberries from 
hotbeds.—In April, destroy insects on fruit-trees ; 
commence the summer-dressing of vines; protect the 
blossoms of choice peaches, apricots, and nectarines, 
from frost and heavy rain; remove supernumerary 
buds from wall and espalier fruit-trees ; cut away 
dead wood and damaged shoots from apple-trees and 
pear-trees ; thin out supernumerary or crowded de- 
velopments of the young fruit of apricots, and use 
the thinnings for tarts; examine grafts, give new 
clay where the old is cracked, and remove all shoots 
which are produced below the grafts; examine trees 
which were budded last summer, pinch off all curled 
leaves from their shoots, and remove all shoots which 
are produced on their stock; thoroughly weed straw- 
berry beds, and clear away all runners except such 
635 
early ones as may be wanted for forming new straw- 
berry plantations in June; and continue the forcing 
of early fruit on hot walls. 
The Flower Garden.—In the beginning of April, 
Dahlia tubers, if previously unattended to, may be 
planted either in a mild hotbed or in the barkbed of 
a hothouse; and during the progress of the month, 
shoots, as they rise from the tubers, should be slip- 
ped off, planted in small pots, and plunged in hot- 
beds. In the early part of the month, the seeds of 
tender annuals, such as cockscombs, globe-amaranths, 
balsams, ice-plants, egg-plants, marvel-of-Peru, stra- 
monium, sensitive-plant, aud others, may be sown on 
a hotbed; the seedlings of tender annuals sown in 
February and March should be transplanted into hot- 
beds under frames and glasses; and the seedlings of 
half-tender annuals should be transplanted to mild 
hotbeds, or, in some instances, to warm situations 
on the open border. Mignonette, ten-weeks’ stock, 
love-lies-bleeding, and prince’s feather, may now, in a 
somewhat dry state of the soil and in genial weather, 
be sown in the open ground ; and almost all kinds of 
hardy annuals may be sown, either once for all, or 
in successions. Special care should be exercised 
over potted carnations, and over beds of choice hy- 
acinths, ranunculuses, anemones, and tulips. Sow- 
ings may now be made of carnations, polyanthuses, 
and alinost all hardy biennials and perennials. Car- 
nations from layers may still—at least in the earlier 
parts of the month—be transplanted. Most kinds of 
biennials and fibrous-rooted perennials may still be 
planted, and, with few exceptions, may be propa- 
gated by division of the root-clods or of the roots 
themselves, or, in multitudes of instances, by mere 
slips or offsets. Many flowering shrubs, if the weather 
of the early part of the month should be showery and 
cloudy, may, in that part of the month, be safely trans- 
planted. Edgings may still be formed; but, should 
the weather be clear and warm, plentiful water must 
be given. Such flowering plants as require it should 
be trimmed and supported; the borders should be 
kept clean from weeds; lawns and grass walks should 
be kept in perfect order; and gravel walks, if not 
thoroughly upturned and cleaned in March, should 
now be broken up and rendered both pleasant to the 
eye and free from all harbourage for weeds. 
May. 
Phenomena.—May has sometimes been designated 
the most cheering month in the year; but, in general, 
it maintains this character only during its latter half; 
and, though sometimes all pleasant, itis likewise some- 
times all chilly. Easterly and north-easterly winds, 
of a cold, piercing, and sometimes foggy nature, 
usually prevail throughout its first half, and occa- 
sionally. prevail till its end; and they frequently in- | 
termit so as to allow a short, warm, summer breeze 
from some other point, and then suddenly return, so 
as almost to produce a practical transition from sum-~ 
mer heat to autumnal cold. But when winter dis- 
appears from the north-west of continental Europe, 
these dismal winds either speedily cease to blow 
upon us, or become very nearly as warm and plea- 
sant as winds from the south or the west. Most of 
the western side of Great Britain, however, es- | 
pecially the immediate western seaboard, is much | 
less subject to the vicissitudes of temperature from 
the easterly winds than the eastern side. The 
thermometer, on the average of many years, has a 
mean height in May of about 53°; but it has 
been known to fall so low as 25° in the night, 
and to rise so high as 86° in the day. ‘The baro- 
meter has a mean height of 29°80, and a mean range 
of 1:02. The mean fall of rain is not quite two 
inches; and the actual fall is very different in differ- 
ent years. The mean evaporation throughout the 
month is at least 34 inches ; and the actual evapora- 
