A northern garden excels in crops that require a cool damp soil, like celery or cauliflower. The best location is a gentle slope to the south, with the orchard and fruit trees, if any, on the north border. On one side should be grapes and small fruits, on the other quinces, currants and gooseberries, if desired ; then have permanent beds of asparagus, or artichoke, or rhubarb, all running down the slope in beds or rows, with room for working. The grouping of bushes on the sides leave unincumbered space for vegetables in the central portion of the plot. Potatoes, being rather unsightly, should be planted near the outer sides.

There should be a broad path at each end of the garden plot for convenience in getting to the rows, and to allow a horse to turn. Such a path should be kept well hoed and carefully weeded. A gentle slope gives drainage enough for all purposes in any land suitable for a garden. The direction of the rows being down the slope, all surplus water is taken off, and irrigation is rendered possible, if needed. A broad walk running through the center, bordered by beds of flowers, would be an added charm to the vegetable garden.

Hot-beds and cold frames are at best unsightly in a well-kept garden ; for this reason they should be located near some building or other screen. They should also be near to a supply of water, all conveniently located so as to receive the constant and watchful care they are sure to need. In advising manures for a garden, I submit my experience, and advocate the use of horse manure liberally applied in fall or spring and plowed in. This can be supplemented by a choice of commercial fertilizer applied as judgment or experience may dictate. Of course plant-food abounds in the manure from other animals, also the products of the compost heap; but for the best results in the vegetable garden, I prefer the manure of the grain-fed horse that has lain on straw. For ease of application it may sometimes be necessary to make it fine by heating and handling enough to rot the straw. Other substitutes for straw in bedding, such as sand, muck, leaves, sawdust, bark and shavings, are not equal in value to the straw of grain.

The selection of seeds is of the greatest importance, as is also the choice of kinds. It is well to send for many catalogues, as they come to hand early in the year. Do not feel obliged to buy of any one simply because he keeps seeds at the next door. Order what is wanted wherever it seems best to buy. My mail seeds give as good and often better results than those secured near at hand. A reliable seedsman's novelties, and whole stock in fact, are to be depended upon from year to year, and can be ordered with assurance of success. It may seem ill-advised to plant all crops three or four feet apart, but when land can be spared for it, the use of a horse between is a great saving of time, and labor with hand hoes and weeders. I like the Planet horse and wheel hoes. They are great time savers. The best and easiest running seed drill is the old style of Rogers' onion drill. It is light, but rather difficult to manage at first. One row with such tools is easier tend" ed when 100 or 50 feet in length, than if divided up into rows ten feet long. Do not use narrow beds.

When crops are planted in single or double rows with spaces sufficiently wide to use the horse cultivator, the work is not only much easier accomplished, but when an early crop is harvested, space is left for the use of the plow or cultivator in fitting the land for a succeeding crop. All crops, as soon as they are past usefulness, should give place to something which will mature and add profit to the garden. Even the spaces left by such crops as tomatoes, squash and corn can be sown to winter rye, which can be plowed under in the spring, or used in other ways. Method, order and neatness in work, with the use of hand-hoes and weeders where necessary, with abundance of fertilizer of suitable quality and in the right place will give good results in most soils.

Hot-beds and cold-frames for the supply of early plants are important factors in any garden. A supply of water near at hand is a prime necessity in case of drought. Shelter is important in the garden, especially for hot beds and early crops, and a fence is the easiest means of securing of it, if it does not exist naturally. 1,000 feet of boards, 12 feet long, when placed end to end, will make a fence six feet high, and about 140 feet long. Set the posts every six feet, two feet of them in the ground, and lean them from the beds a little as a better support to the shutters and mats that must be used on beds in winter, and often need drying off. The boards can be nailed permanently to the posts ; or they may be cleated or screwed to them, for use in winter only, removing the boards in the spring, and replacing them in the fall, leaving the posts to stand all the time. Plank for hot-beds, where much of it is used, are better taken up in summer, and staked up again in fall, banked against on the outside with dirt, and filled on the inside with leaves, so that the pit can be opened as wanted.

Rotation should be followed, novelties tested for future use, and the most must be made of every crop. In many cases it is wise to save seeds, but where plants are grown in variety and small quantities, seeds can be bought more cheaply than they can be grown. A full garden is a treasure.

Massachusetts. W. H. Bull.