Lilies coming up through carpet of White Arabis.

There are great cultural advantages too, in leaving the whole of the leaves to nourish the ground and protect it from frost or heat. I append a note from a correspondent inquiring about what he supposes practical difficulties, and an answer to them: -

You draw a pretty picture of* what a shrubbery border should be and how it should he kept in winter. There should he no digging, and the fallen leaves should he left. I fully agree, except as to the leaves. Theoretically, it seems quite right to allow the leaves to lie and decay amidst the surrounding plants, hut in practice it does not answer. There are, for instance, in most gardens such things as slugs and snails. These delight in a leafy covering, and, protected from frost by the shelter, will prey upon the perennial green leafage and the starting crowns of the herbaceous plants, and do an immense amount of mischief. Then there are usually in gardens in winter, especially in hard weather, blackbirds and thrushes, which in their efforts to obtain food set all notions of tidiness at defiance. A troop of fowls would hardly turn a flower border more topsy-turvy than would a few of these birds. The first storm that came would whirl the disturbed leaves all over the place, much to the disgust of the cultivator, and the hardy plants would find that the theory of a natural dressing of leaf manure had broken down. I detest the forking of borders so common in winter. A moderate stirring of the surface first with a two or three-tined rake is good, then a dressing of soot or guano, or both, and over all a thin surfacing of old pot soil, or the rough screened produce of the rubbish heap, or, in fact, any kind of refuse soil that may offer. I think that most cultivators will agree that such a plan would answer better than the natural, but very inoperative leaf-dressing. - A,

How do the swarming herbs of the woods and copses of the world exist in spite of the sings? A good protection for them is hard gravel walks and paths, where they lay their eggs without danger. Against the door one may do what one likes, but not one leal' would I ever allow removed from a clump of shrubs or trees on my lawn or in my pleasure ground. 1 would prefer the leaves all over the place to a dug border, but 1 would, if need be, meet that difficulty by scattering a light dressing of soil over them. In what I should call a properly managed shrubbery or clump, with the bushes well spaced, and their branches resting on the ground, with low shrubs between, and evergreen and other herbs, there are natural impediments to the leaves rushing about in the way you suppose. This is a subject of the greatest interest and the utmost practical importance. Our annual digging mutilation, scraping away of leaves, and exposing on bare sloppy borders plants that in Nature shelter each other, and are shielded from bitter frost and burning heat by layers of fallen leaves, gradually sinking into excellent light surface soil for the young roots, are ignorant and brutal practices that must be given up by all who really look into the needs of our hardy garden flora.

Colony of Narcissus in properly spaced shrubbery.

With reference to this point, I print this letter from an observer of what goes on in the woods of New England.

Our own woods are full of lessons, and so it is in all countries.

Mr. Falconer's letter is very suggestive of the revolution in method which must be carried out in the gardens of the future: -

I go into the woods in the spring time, and find them carpeted with Dog's-tooth Violets, Wood Anemones, blue and purple Hepaticas, Spring beauty, Trilliums, Blood-root, Star-flowers, False Solomon's Seal, Gold Thread, trailing Arbutus, wild Ginger, and a host of other pretty little flowers, all bright and gay, arising from their bed of decaying herbage and tree leaves, and many of them are in perfection, too, before a tree has spread a leaf ; and thus they glow and revel in their cosy bed, fed and sheltered by their tree friends. When their petals drop and their leaves are mature, the trees expand their leafy canopy and save the little nurslings from the torture of a scorching sun. And early as the earliest, too, the outskirts of the woods and meadows with hosts of Violets are painted blue and white, and speckled everywhere with Bluets, or little Innocents, as the children call them. Woodsias, tiny Aspleniums, and other Ferns are unfolding their fronds along the chinks among the stones ; the common Polypody is reaching over blocks and boulders ; and even the exposed rocks, with their rough and Lichen-bearded faces, are aglow in vernal pride. Every nook and cranny among them, and little mat of earth upon them are checkered with the flowery print of the Canada Columbine, the Virginia Saxifrage, and the glaucous Corydalis. But to the carpet. What can be prettier or more appropriate than the Partridge-berry (Mitchella repens), the Twin-flower (Linnaea borealis - does well with us), Creeping Winter Green (Gaultheria procumbens), Bearberry (Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi), Cowberry (Vaccinium Vitis-idaea), Dwarf Cornel (Cornus canadensis), Fringed Polygala (P. paucifolia), the Common Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata) with its shining deep green leaves, the Spotted Pipsissewa (C maculata), the sombre-hued Pyrola and Galax, and that bright and easily-grown Club Moss (Lycopodium lucidulum) ? Add to these such plants as Winter Aconite, Apennine Anemone, Creeping Forget-me-not, and the like, together with a few of the, most suitable kinds of the host of bulbous ornamental plants which we now possess, and our shrubbery carpets may be replete with garden jewels. It is now generally conceded that shrubs thrive better in beds whose surface is undisturbed than where it is annually loosened by digging or pointing. This, coupled with a yearly top-dressing of decayed leaf-soil or light rich vegetable heap compost, is equally beneficial for the shrubs and their carpet.