Is not the character of the 'Gardeners' Chronicle' in the matter of "copy" above suspicion? It neither steals from others nor permits its own to be stolen, if it can put in a claim; and it would be absurd to suppose that so learned and expert a body as the editor and staff could be gulled to the extent of having the productions of a well-known author foisted upon them as original! Oh no! The poetry of the 'Chronicle' is "original," and "J. Downie" is its poet! But "J. Downie's" poetical genius is much more manifest in the matter of selection than in that of retouching. It is bad enough to "convey" another man's verses body-bulk; but the offence is tenfold aggravated when the appropriator spoils these verses by his own silly alterations. Still, if Downie and the 'Chronicle' will pardon us parodying their style, we would say -

Wi' his capers naebody can thole,

For the verses, * ye ken, were just "stole "

Frae Wingate's sad lay, +

And the very next day

The 'Chronicle' printed the whole -

The whole -The 'Chronicle' printed the whole!

After this we may be prepared for meeting with any of our old acquaintances in the "Original Poetry" corner of the 'Chronicle,' and it would not surprise us to hear that the editor has accepted Shelley's "Sensitive Plant," or Burns's "Wee, modest, crimson-tippit flow'r," from the pen of its gifted correspondent.

* "Jack Frost" in 'The Gardener's Chronicle,' April 19th, 1879. + 'Annie Weir, and other Poems.' By David Wingate. William Black' wood & Sons, Edinburgh and London : 1866.

The past long and severe winter, and the prolonged low temperature of the spring, also now gone, continue to excite unusual comment. Even people whose occupations do not lead them to take so much interest in the weather as gardeners and farmers are beginning to be disquieted at the weird aspect of the season. Summer is here, and yet vegetation is almost as completely at rest as it was at midwinter, and snow and frost have prevailed in many places. Farmers are unprecedentedly late in getting their spring crops in, and fear that now these will not ripen unless the few remaining months during which we can expect any real warmth are unusually favourable. As an indication of the continued low state of the temperature during the last eight or nine months, we were the other day shown some Cauliflower plants that were sown last August, and in September pricked out into a frame, where they had remained until the beginning of the present month of May without having made any perceptible growth during a period of seven months.

The plants were not more than 3 inches high ! Let us not meet our troubles half-way, however, but hope that we shall have both seed-time and harvest as usual.

Can the collective ingenuity of the Scottish Horticultural Association suggest nothing better - nothing more likely to promote the interests of horticulture - than a competition for the best "kitchen-garden plan," a subject which we thought had been pretty well settled? A vegetable-garden can very often all be a square plot, and the chief difficulty of the designer lies in contriving the best way of getting round the same with a wheelbarrow. This the successful winners of the Society's prize have managed to show can be done, by adhering to the old style adopted in every kitchen-garden in the kingdom, down to the cottager's allotment; and it will be no doubt pleasing to them to be told by "a competent garden architect" that "they have each adopted the form best adapted for a kitchen-garden." Let it be understood, however, that we do not find fault with the clever-going gardeners who drew the plans - they could only operate on the lines set out for them by the S. H. A., and they have shown their good sense and judgment by adhering to the old style, which, indeed, they could not well have improved upon.

There is, however, a partial revolution going on in kitchen-gardening itself that might have been opportunely taken notice of, and that is the system of keeping the fruit and vegetable gardens distinct. In these days, when gentlemen can buy many kinds of fruits and vegetables almost cheaper than they can produce them at home, the subject of remunerative kitchen-gardening is attracting a good deal more attention, and gardeners are finding out that their success is now measured by the marketable value of their productions a great deal more than it used to be; and consequently the question how to lay out and crop a kitchen-garden to the best advantage is the one concerning which gardeners have need to learn most at the present time, and we commend the subject to the attention of those who wish to encourage horticulture in the way indicated by the Scottish Horticultural Association. We have said that no great alterations are suggested in the formation of the vegetable quarters of a garden; but how to reduce the extent and labour of keeping garden walks and borders - how to keep the orchard and vegetable departments separate with advantage to both - and above all, how to utilise necessary or existing garden-walls, by covering them with glass instead of erecting independent glass structures in another part of the ground, and at great and extra expense, for a similar purpose, - are questions which those who aspire to teach us anything on the subject should study.

In this respect our enterprising horticultural builders are ahead of gardeners themselves, and suggestions have been already offered on the subject by the editor of this paper.

A correspondent of one of the daily papers in the provinces writes as follows on the subject of dishonest proceedings at flower-shows: "I can speak from a good deal of experience, and can truly affirm that the days of horticultural shows are numbered, unless nefarious practices are put a stop to. Exhibitors who are honest are disgusted at being deprived of what they have honestly won, and subscribers are in many instances declining to patronise or connect themselves with what they rightly deem a disgrace to the place. I could enlarge this letter considerably by giving numerous instances of the variety of frauds practised, but as they are generally known I scarcely think it necessary. If, however, committees having the management and appropriation of money subscribed for the encouragement or improvement of cottage-gardening would take such measures as will prove of use in putting a stop to the evil, they will merit the approval of every one, and will succeed in raising floral exhibitions from the slough of despond into which they are fast falling to a state in which they will be what they are designed to be - a great and lasting benefit to the public".

These remarks allude to certain revelations that had been made concerning fraudulent practices at flower-shows, and now quite common, it would appear, and practised with impunity.

A correspondent of 'Gardening Illustrated' says: "The Sunflower is a most valuable sanitary agent. This I proved to my entire satisfaction whilst living in the environs of an eastern city of the United States, where bad drainage and a hot sun - aggravated by the habits of a population ignorant of all hygienic law - aroused me to the necessity of some safeguard. This was the Sunflower (Helianthus), started early in pots and planted out when half a foot high. They soon formed a grove in the very stiff clay soil of which your correspondent of No. 4 complains. Jerusalem Artichokes, as a vegetable, will do for him what these Sunflowers did for me. In a year or two, with generous manuring, they will change yellow clay into a moderately light soil of a darker hue. My family, and those of two immediate neighbouring cottages, were the only ones that escaped unscathed from the smallpox epidemic. Chicken cholera also raged around and cleared entire hen-roosts. Mine was untouched by it. The stems of those Sunflowers which bordered the garden I utilised by trimming off all leaves and laterals for bean stalks and supports for climbing-flowers. The seeds, of which I had several bushels, served to fatten my fowls. They ate it when they refused the more usual fare of maize.

The stems, when dry, I burnt for potash. No other vegetable matter contains so much of this (to the gardener) valuable alkali".

The following plan from the 'Journal of Horticulture' of fumigating hothouses is, we think, worth mentioning. The plan is simple, convenient, and effective, apparently:- "Fumigating. - I beg to submit to your smoke-poisoned inquirer 'S.A.Y.,' page 247, an easy and cheap method of fumigating in safety. Have a 6-inch flower-pot resting on an old gridiron, or two or three pieces of iron rod, on the top of two herring boxes or bricks the height you want, leaving space between for a candlestick, and place your apparatus near the door; fill the pot with tobacco-paper torn in pieces half the size of your hand, do not press it too firmly, place a lighted candle close to the hole in the pot, and the work is done for a house 14 feet by 12. You can open the door to take out the candle, or you can leave it to burn out".

A horticultural writer in a provincial paper says that at Stevens's Rooms, the other day, plants of "Odontoglossum maxillarium and 0. Alexandra were pointed out to him which had been potted in common garden earth, just as a cottager would pot a Fuchsia for his window. These had been grown among other plants in a hothouse, and had made bulbs larger than those of the previous year." It may be mentioned that we have seen thousands of the Odontoglossum roots - chiefly O. Alexandra, gloriosa, triumphans, and others - just as they came out of the ship and as they had been gathered, and we have often thought, from the debris still adhering to the roots, that the plants did not look as if they had been grown in such a compost as sphagnum, but in stones and soil, kept moist probably by copious rainfalls during their season of growth. Some of the plants had dead flower-stems on them, that must, when plump and fresh, have been as round and plump as one's finger, and some feet in height, the stump left being some 9 inches long. There is nothing to complain of in the success attained by our hothouse methods of culture, but if such plants can be grown successfully in common garden soil, it will simplify their culture to some extent.

While on this subject, we notice that your old and valued correspondent, Mr F. W. Burbidge, is contributing an account of his experiences as a collector of Orchids to one of your contemporaries. Would that plant-collectors had sooner begun to tell us of the conditions under which the plants they sent home were found growing naturally. Thousands and thousands of plants have been sent home from time to time simply to be killed, because the necessary information as to their habits and conditions of existence did not accompany them. The reticence of collectors on this head has hitherto been wholly inexplicable. Reader.