Your highly respectable contemporary, the Irish 'Gardeners' Record,' we would recommend to the attentive perusal of the horticultural press generally - it is worth watching. It is difficult to feel anything but commiseration and sympathy for a journal that has to pack its pages promiscuously with paragraphs about such subjects as "Holloway's Pills," which, the 'Record' states, in a chatty way, "are as mild as they are efficacious." This statement is not given as an advertisement, and so we expect its editor has tried them. There is no harm, of course, in a grateful acknowledgment of this kind; hut it is different when the ' Record' appropriates whole chapters from its contemporaries without acknowledgment, simply because it appreciates them as it does the pills. We observe that it has transferred that chapter of the "Squire's Gardener's" on "Mixed Flower-Gardening," from ' The Gardener' to its own pages without so much as "By 'r leave, sir." Robbing the ample stores of 'The Gardener' is perhaps not so heinous an offence; but what is any one to think of the same paper abstracting matter in the same way from the pages of its humble contemporary 'The Villa Gardener'! Is it not too bad? It is the old story of the big dog robbing the little one.

In the same number of the ' Record ' is an unacknowledged article on "Epidendrums," which appeared in the 'V. G.' of August last. There are also articles on one or two other subjects we should like to know the parentage of. [We do not care much about being quoted without acknowledging the source, but we are sorry to think that any gardening journal is capable of so doing. - Ed].

The prophets are again speculating on the chances of a severe winter. If, as they assert, bad winters follow cold and wet summers, then the ensuing winter ought to be a severe one. It has not set in yet, however, with us. October was exceptionally fine; and November, up to near the middle of month, has been as pleasant almost as the month of June. Contradictory accounts come from other countries. Among the vineyards of Austria heavy snow fell early in October and destroyed the hopes of the growers. In far-away Iceland, on the other hand, within the Arctic Circle, the inhabitants have been basking under an almost Italian sun till late in the season, and some had nothing to complain of all the summer but the heat and the drought.

According to all accounts, many kinds of flower-seeds are likely to be both scarce and dear next season. Mignonette seed is all but a complete failure; and those who require it by the ton, we hear, have a difficulty in getting anything like their usual quantity, and holders are reserving their stock. The failure of the potato crop has been complete in this country; but the fear of a potato famine is groundless, as the Continental growers are contributing abundant supplies. Potatoes are dear, however, and likely to be. The variety ailed Magnum Bonum seems to have resisted the disease better than any other - to be almost disease-proof, indeed, if we are to believe what has been written about it in most of the gardening and agricultural papers. Dealers are buying up stock of it for seed, and no doubt it will have a good run.

We have rarely seen anything that has pleased us so much as those lines in 'Good Words' on "The Cloudberry." The style is something between Tom Hood, in his more serious moods, and Wordsworth:-

"Nay, touch it not; 'tis the Cloudberry bloom,

My friend, you and I have found, On this far height, 'mid the soft June winds,

Pale-white on the mossy ground. Ah ! rarely 'tis seen by the eye of man;

By us let it not be soiled; The sprites linger long on the mists of the morn

To watch it ope on the wild. • • • •

High 'neath the clouds thou bloomest alone,

Lost flower of the moorland free; Thy homage the circling peewits cry,

And the hum of the mountain bee.

* • • •

Bloom fairer than thee I ne'er have seen

On dale or on hill I've climbed, And ne'er have I known a darker birth

By the power of heaven sublimed ! "

The ignorance displayed by eminent public men occasionally on the subjects of which they speak is perfectly astonishiug. A certain noble lord, in a speech delivered by him before an agricultural society in the south, gave it as his opinion that the climate of Great Britain was deteriorating, or becoming colder; and, in support of this opinion, stated that neither the Bay nor the Arbutus, among other things, would now stand our winters without protection; and that the Camellia, which once used to be hardy with us, is now not to be seen out of doors ! It need not be pointed out how much the noble lord is in error about the two first; and if he had been a reader of these papers, where he could have procured more accurate information on such subjects, he would have known that there was never a time when the hardiness of the Camellia was better recognised and acted upon, and that it has scarcely ever been known to be killed by our winters.

The 'Garden' says: "Mr Peter Henderson recommends, in the 'American Agriculturist,'.a flower-pot with holes low down in the side instead of in the bottom. We have, he says, during the past six months tried about a thousand, of sizes ranging from 3 inches to 6 inches in diameter, and find they are all we expected of them. All cultivators know the difficulty experienced when the ordinary flower-pot is placed on a bench covered with sand or soil - the outlet often becomes completely closed by the washing of the soil through the outlet, and being closed by the sand, the drainage becomes stopped as completely as if there was no orifice at all in the bottom of the pot. Again, worms breed quickly in the sand or soil, and seem to take a special pleasure in crawling under and through the holes in the bottom of the pots, to get at the rich soil which they contain. This improved pot is safe from the first difficulty, as the holes, being on the sides of the pot, cannot be clogged by the sand; while it is far less tempting to the worm, as a special effort must be made before the hole can be reached.

Still another advantage - and we think a very important one - is, that as these orifices are placed above the bottom, air is admitted more freely to the roots, a matter which is very essential to the wellbeing of plants. I have but little doubt that if this style of flower-pot can be as cheaply made, it will quite throw the old style out of use".

Flower-pots with holes at the side, close to the bottom, are not new; and we believe it was the Glasgow makers who first made them, at the suggestion of the late Mr Charles M'Intosh of Dalkeith, but the plan was only adopted with pots above the size of 6 inches or thereabout. Those pots had holes in the bottom too, however, and it appears a good suggestion of Mr Henderson's to dispense with these altogether, for the reasons he states. There would be less danger then of worms getting into the pots, or of the drainage being choked up; but how about those plants that are sometimes allowed to root through the bottom of the pot?

The 'Journal of Horticulture' says: "It is not perhaps generally known how valuable the pretty variegated Ophioglossum spicatum is for table and room decoration. When the plants are grown in a little heat the foliage assumes a more upright character than is generally seen, and as it then gracefully arches the plants are extremely attractive. The narrow leaves are clearly margined with white, and being smooth and persistent endure the dry air of rooms for a considerable time without being injured. Well-grown plants are equally useful for the margins of greenhouses and conservatories. When flowering, the purple Grape Hyacinth-like spike contrasts effectively with the white foliage; but whether in or out of flower the plant is very useful for decorative purposes. As testimony of the increasing popularity of this Ophioglossum we recently observed a batch of plants in Messrs Veitch's nursery, a great portion of which, were labelled 'sold.' Visitors have seen, admired, and purchased them".

Plants that "go off" amongst gardeners usually turn out to be popular subjects of general culture. Reader.