Why is it that a lady may have good taste as regards dress and trimmings, and yet when she attempts to beautify the garden, make such ridiculous mistakes! For instance, she may paint her boxes or flower pots red, and perhaps grow a geranium with a pink blossom in them, and the attention is sure to be drawn to the glaring color, instead of the plants. Or she may order her house painted green, and thus shame the trees or the grass. Or worse than all, erect in her front yard a gypsy kettle hanging between three poles, and try to grow plants in the iron pot, also painted red. I have seen the stump of a tree turned upside down, the roots in the air, with ferns planted in it. The poor things, torn from their lovely cover in the woods, and put in that abomination, were drooping their graceful heads in shame. Sea shells often border a garden bed or path, but are out of place, in some garden a thousand miles from old ocean. Here is a new field for women : plans for artistic outside adornment. Begin with your own grounds.

Read, compare notes, and our gardens will be much improved thereby. - Sister Gracious.