seed. Broccoli, sow, prick out seedlings. Cabbages, plant, prick out seedlings, sow, earth up advancing crops. Carrots, sow, weed Cauliflowers, plant out from glasses, prick out seedlings, sow. Celery, sow, earth up, and dress old plantations. Cucumber, sow, prick out seedlings, ridge out. Cress, sow. Endive, sow. Fennel, sow or plant. Garlic, plant. Horseradish, plant. Hyssop, sow and plant. Jerusalem artichokes, plant. Kale, sow and plant. Kidney beans, attend to in hotbeds. Leeks, sow, leave for seed. Lettuces, sow, plant out from frames, prick out seedlings, tie up those of advanced growth. Lavender, plant. Mint, plant. Melons, sow, prick out, ridge out, attend to advancing crops. Mustard and cress, sow, leave for seed. Make mushroom bed. Nasturtiums, sow. Onions, sow. Potatoes, plant. Parsnips, sow, hand-weed advancing crops. Peas, Sow, hoe, stick advancing crops. Radishes, sow, thin advancing crops. HYACINTHS OUT OF BLOOM. PEOPLE who have paid good prices for good bulbs are generally reluctant to consign them to the rubbish heap when they have bloomed out; yet in many cases the bulbs are so badly treated while pushing into bloom that the best advise to their possessors would be "throw them away." But there is no good reason why any and every bulb used for ornamental purposes should be lost, or should be so far injured as to be scarcely worth recovering, or should fail not only to bloom again, but to contribute to the general stock some offsets of itself.. As soon as our first batch of hyacinths shows signs of decline, prepare a bed in which to plant them out in a frame. The bed should consist of rotten dung, turned over and mixed with any dry litter, such as waste straw, fern, leaves, &c. It is made up in good bulk, and soiled over with a foot depth of light garden soil of any kind, mixed with a fourth part of rotten manure. Three or four days after making up the bed a gentle heat is produced, and on thrusting the hand into the soil it is found to be much warmer within than without. Hyacinths that have been grown singly, and have had the comfort of glass and artificial heat, ought not to be turned out in the open ground, to be buffeted by east winds and chilled by the cold soil; therefore give them a bed slightly warmed, to prevent a check at the moment when it VOL. V.-NEW SERIES. is necessary they should be kept full of vigour, and with a free circulation of sap in the foliage. As for the rest, the bloom stems are cut off just before the lowest of the flowers; the balls are turned out complete; and if the crocks cannot be removed without injuring the roots, they are allowed to remain, and the bulbs are planted with their roots entire, and the crown of the bulb about three inches below the surface. They may be crowded very close together, but not to the injury of one ball in opening a hole for the next. After a good watering, the lights are drawn up, and the plants are kept rather close until mild moist weather sets in; then the lights are taken off, and kept off; and as soon as the leaves turn yellow, cease to water, and in due time the bulbs get well roasted, and ripen perfectly. The whole management turns upon this, to keep up root and leaf action from the time the blooms are over till the bulbs naturally go to rest. Then let that rest be perfect. Leave them perfectly dry, and let the sun have full effect on them, and the bulbs will come out of the soil hard and sound. We treat in this way those that have flowered in water as well as those that have had a better chance in pots filled with a generous compost. In September prepare a bed, which must be deep, well drained, and consist of about equal parts of loam, leaf-mould, sand, and rotten dung. Plant all your bulbs in this bed five inches deep from the crown of the bulb to the surface of the bed. There let them take care of themselves. Wherever bloom-spikes rise, nip them away, with the exception of one flower to each. This one flower allow to expand. These bulbs will all be taken up and stored away in a dry cool place when they have again finished their growth in the following June or July, and when the leaves are quite dead they may be lifted without danger. The largest and hardest may be potted, or put in glasses, for the next season's bloom; and the smallest and softest should be planted out again in the same sort of soil as before, to give them another chance of recruiting their energies. English grown hyacinths are as good as those grown by Dutchmen, when done properly. Grow them in a bed, as just advised, two seasons in succession-allowing no bloom except one or so on each, to prove them, and they will be as strong as imported bulbs. From the day they show leaves they should have water in dry weather, and after the first week in April, weak manure water should be given plenti fully once a week till the end of May, and then they should be left alone to finish their career without further help. Where hyacinths are required in quantity for the spring decoration of the parterre, the cultivator should have three beds at work-one for offsets, the next for weak bulbs, and the next for bulbs enjoying a second year's growth without bloom. The suppression of the bloom for one entire season has magical effect in swelling the bulb, and preparing it for blooming superbly when allowed to do so.-Gardener's Weekly Magazine. RECENT SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE STARS.-It is strange how we have to give up, one after another, our old notions, even on scientific subjects. Mr. Glaisher's experiences during his balloon ascents seem to have proved that "our hitherto estimated velocities of the air are erroneous," that "our instruments on the earth do not give any indication of the real velocity of the air," and that "our theories of vapour require to be reconsidered;" and a German astronomer has just upset our old ideas respecting the comparative nearness of the various fixed stars. Hitherto, Sirius, being to our eyes the brightest, and possessed of the greatest apparent size, has been regarded as the nearest of the stellar bodies; while the next brightest, as Polaris and Arcturus, have been regarded as the next nearest. M Kruger, however, has demonstrated, by means of parallax observations, that this is a mistake. He has found the parallax of several stars of the eighth, ninth, and tenth magnitudes-stars in visible to the naked eye-to be much greater than that of those stars of the first and second magnitndes which are the most prominent objects in our firmament; and, of course, the stars whose parallax are greatest are the stars which are the nearest to us. Of two stars in the constellation Cygnus, one of which, plainly visible to the naked eye, Sir William Herschell, founding his estimate solely on comparative visibility, supposed to be placed at only one-twelfth of the distance from us of the other, which is a star which the naked eye can scarcely distinguish at all, M. Kruger has proved that to be the nearest which ir William Herschell supposed to be twelve times the farthest off. All this indicates that there must be a wonderful variety in the respective sizes of the globes-each supposed to be a sun, and. like our sun, the centre of a planetary system which make up the countless hosts of the stellar universe. Some must be as much vaster than others as an elephant is bigger than an ant. SPRING. WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF 15. They tell me that summer hath far more charms, I Oh, it cannot make glad the heart with these; own it is lovely, yet long for spring, The beautiful, joyous, fairy-like spring! They tell me that autumn hath far more charms, When its corn-fields teem with glitt'ring grain, When he golden hue of tree and sky Tells that far-famed autumn nears its wane. But give me the heavenly sky of spring, The beautiful, joyous, fairy-like spring! There's a charm in the morn of spring's sweet time, When the clos'd buds welcome the sun's soft ray; When the dew-drop lies on the waving grass; Oh, 'tis dearer than summer's brightest day. There's a charm in the noon of spring's sweet time, When the sun from the blue sky is beaming; The flow'rs send forth perfume from valley and hill, And the air with their fragrance is teeming. There's a charm in the eve of spring's sweet time, When the sun sinks to rest on the distant hill; All nature is silent, so full is its joy! Oh, yes! it is dearer, far dearer still! Extends to the soul as it looks above. DAISY H. GOOD libraries are the shrines where all the relies of the ancient heroes, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and repose. A FALSE friend is like a shadow on a dial. It appears in clear weather, and vanishes as soon as a storm approaches. LOVE is a morning dream, whose memory gilds the day. A KIND word is more valuable to the lost than a mine of gold. PHOTOGRAPHY; EDUCATIONALLY, HISTORICALLY, AND PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED. BY AN OLD HAND. "Ars longa, vita brevis est." "As our art is not a divine gift, so neither is it a mechanical trade. Its foundations are laid in solid science; and practice, though essential to perfection, can never attain that to which it aims, unless it works under the direction of principle."-SiR JOSHU▲ Reynolds. I. INTRODUCTION. note the many shops of importance almost PHOTOGRAPHY, as the word implies, is exclusively devoted to the sale of photoa compound of two Greek words, phos graphs; neither can we resist the fact and grapho, and signifies writing or draw-that all these results of the magic artist ing by the agency of light. This "hand- have emanated from labours so recent as maid of the sciences" has become, during Daguerre, Archer, Hunt, and Mr. W. H. the past few years, universally recognised Fox Talbot. We can, a la Blondin, withas a most necessary adjunct wherever out endangering our lives, proceed to truthful and distinct representations of cross the foaming cataracts of mighty objects are required, either animate or Niagara, climb the snow-capped mountain inanimate. During the short period of of Mont Blanc, and icy crests of Mont its existence its growth has been most Maudit, without the assistance of guides; rapid, and the innumerable blessings con- ascend and admire the intercepting ferred upon us by its means are un-verdant valleys of the Alps, take a cruise accountable, the greatest of its wonderful powers being that of accurately delineating the human form; for by its aid the mother possesses the image of her darling child when all that is earthly of it may have perished, and keeps alive a spring of everlasting affection within her breast which diffuses itself to all around her. As Dr. Watts truly asserts that— Sounds, which address the ear, are lost and die It has entered into every grade of society, from the Queen on the throne to the peasant in his humble cottage. How many of us have friends and relatives at some far distant clime, in a manner entirely lost, but ever present in another form, through the instrumentality of this one of the most powerful of scientific divining-rods! Who amongst us does not possess the fashionable carte de vis te album, containing the tiny but life-like portraits of all whom we hold dear, either of those present, or those lost for ever? Let us take a stroll in the heart of the great Metropolis, passing through Regentstreet, Oxford-street, and the Strand, and down the Chamounix and Mer de Glace, without even braving the dangers of the channel. One moment we see the reliable records and horrors of war, and in the next are ushered into the presence of royalty-without uncovering, statesmen, and the greatest of the great; sat at the councils of the mighty, from thence transported to the Pyramids of Egypt, Japan, and wink at the pig-tails with impunity, and become at a glance familiar with the kings, queens, emperors, primadonnas, well-graced and athletic actors, and the pets of the ballet. Photography, technically speaking, is the Child of Chemistry, although, since its birth, it has called into existence several totally new combinations of matter; and has been the means of wonderfully cheapening the cost of production of many of the most useful chemicals and drugs; but notwithstanding all this, photographic researches could not be prosecuted without that all-important agent, light. In fact we recognise in light one of "The vast magazine of means, Formed at His word, and ready at His will." light really ends; for we know that plants, the contract being given to the London when grown in the dark, do not develope Stereoscopic Company, for the enormous the qualities, and proximate principles sum of 1500 guineas, which sum was which belong to them as members of afterwards increased to nearly 2000 natural orders, but are found bleached, guineas for additional privileges. This watery, and almost entirely devoid of Company's photographic results have long colouring matter or chlorophyll. It is since been given to the public in somealso a recognised fact that animalcula where near 250 different subjects, views, grow in water much more readily in the &c., large and small, cartes de visite, plain light than in the dark. Considering and coloured, and views expressly for the photography, in relation to its educa- stereoscope. The subjects mostly in detional and practical value, it cannot be mand were statuary, chiefly the "Reading too highly dwelt upon. Photography Girl," of which subject alone nearly 200 was a scientific curiosity at our first gross of its copies were sold per week. Exhibition of 1851, at which there were The "Sleep of Sorrow and the Dream of not more than a dozen daguerreotypes Joy," Gibson's "tinted Venus," the and talbotypes on view, grouped with "veiled figures of Monti," and others of the philosophical instruments; and with the "chef d'œuvre of the collection." printing and applied design at the Paris Altogether there have been over 2319 Exhibition of 1855. Consequently, in the gross of the above photographs disposed first, a photographic landscape was con- of during the year 1862, and which will sidered properly located if placed behind hand down to posterity an everlasting a sextant or voltaic battery; in the next memento of the second of England's among candlesticks and children's toys. Great Industrial World's Fairs. But owing to the rapid advances made during the interim of the two Exhibitions, that era of confusion was no longer allowed to exist, and photography, as it deserved, obtained a distinct place in the arts; was allowed to rank as a separate class in the Exhibition of 1862, and recognised as an independent art; and although tolerably well represented at the last world's show, still it was far from being the display it might have been had not certain restrictions been put upon exhibitors by the Commissioners, in addition to the damp and dingy garretlooking place assigned to them for such a delicate class of goods, undoubtedly perishable where much dampness is evident. It is a question whether there are many, nay, even a single photograph existing, which records the interior of the then-considered gorgeous palace of Hydepark, with the truth and accuracy belonging to photography alone. That such should not be the case for the future, the Commissioners of 1862 resolved upon calling for tenders to be sent to obtain the sole right of photographing the interior and all articles therein exhibited, and which, as was anticipated, caused great and active competition among the chief photographers, which, at last, ended by In a letter which Daguerre wrote to Mr. Robert Hunt, in 1841, he says, "By means of my new process it shall be possible to fix the images of objects in motion, such as public ceremonies, market places covered with people, cattle, &c.," and such has been realised, not with the daguerreotype, but by the collodion process, which, in the fraction of a second, enables the prepared plates to become impressed with all the thousand details of buildings, and their exquisitely chiselled adornments. Who has not seen the wondrous instantaneous scenes of busy life in London, and the exquisite seaviews, by Blanchard, which so faithfully depict that watery element in all its calm and stormy grandeur, with its huge silvery tipped waves careering onwards, and angry-looking cumulus towering high in the heavens above, forming, as it were, a fringe to that majestic element? the street views of Paris and America by Mr. England, containing hundreds of people in motion, some idly lounging, while men and horses with uplifted legs are rapidly hurrying forward at the velocity of a "Deerfoot," as well as women, children, carts, omnibuses, and cabriolets, all of which have left their images firmly fixed upon the tablet ? and the still more wonderful moonlight photographs by Breese, of Birmingham! Nay, even the ponderous projectiles sent forth booming from the mouth of the immense artillery, with the speed of a flash of lightning, have been most faithfully recorded; even to the very bursting of a shell upon its contact with "mother earth," is plainly visible upon the photographs taken by Mr. Skaife, with his miniature apparatus he so aptly terms a "pistolgraph." Taking, now, photography in an educational sense, the artist cannot fail to glean from his preconceived enemy many useful lessons and hints, and still further penetrate some of the mysteries of light and shadow. In photographic copies of nature, a tree, no matter whether an oak, a sycamore, an elm, or a fir, or some special member of our vegetable kindgom, can be at once recognised by its correctly formed leaves, each leaf lying in a different position, relative to the incident light; but can we say this much in praise of many examples produced by some of our leading artists? In fact, no artist dare pretend to cope with Dame Nature in her artistic moods. tains and valleys, indicating a period of terrific disturbance long since passed away. The sun with his own undulating brushes of light has supplied us with many of his most strange luminous visages. It will be remembered, that on July 18th, 1860, there was an eclipse of the sun visible in England and other portions of the globe, and previous to this occasion Mr. Warren De la Rue and a few scientific gentlemen took their departure on a photgraphic expedition for Spain, fully equipped with photographic paraphernalia and the Kew photoheliograph, to secure photographs of the solar eclipse in all its various phases. Their observations were made at Rivabellosa, a village near Miranda del Elro, and the station selected was at an elevation of 1572 feet above the mean level of the sea, being bounded by a beautiful panorama formed by the distant Pyrenean mountain range. Mr. Warren De la Rue says— "Just before and after the eclipse sunpictures were made, and during the progress of the eclipse thirty-one photographs were obtained, the times of which are carefully registered. These will serve hereafter to determine the path of the moon across the sun's disc and other data with considerable accuracy. "The serrated edges of the moon is perfectly depicted in all the photographs, The architect is enabled to preserve views of existing edifices, remarkable alike for grandeur of conception, or for comprehensiveness of design, combined with the greatest fidelity and most artistic effect. He can arrest for a time the pro-and in some of them one cusp of the sun gress of decay in many of the now crum- may be seen blunted by the projections bling memorials of the genius of a past of a lunar mountain, while the other age; can obtain examples of the most remains perfectly sharp. I continued ancient floriated doorway, of each figured during the eclipse to observe the sun by corbel or grotesque gorgoyle, previous to means of a telescope of three inches the destructive hand of time defacing aperture, by Dallmeyer, and I am enabled the beauty of the original. Take as an to confirm the results obtained photoillustration the beautiful series of photo-graphically. As I observed the progress graphs by Frith, Bedford, and others, of the Egyptian temples, tombs, and chiselled obelisks, with their myriads of hieroglyphic characters, and arrow-headed inscriptions, and also the beauties of Greece and Rome. The astronomer has long since become greatly indebted to the art, for by its aid the moon has been compelled to lend her illuminative powers in order that the public may possess faithful portraits of herself at various ages; and upon her surface are clearly depicted those moun of the eclipse, I gave the signal from time to time for the taking of a photograph, so that some have been procured just as the moon passed across my conspicuous solar spot. "When the sun was reduced to a small crescent, the shadows of all objects were depicted with wonderful sharpness and blackness, and as I cast my eyes on the now silent crowd, they and the landscape appeared as if illuminated by the electric light, so brilliant were the lights, so black and sharp were the shadows. |