lines, need only to be measured, and pieces of string stretched from pegs put in at the proper distances, so as to form straight lines, oblongs, squares, triangles, or diamonds. If a circle is to be traced, it is done by getting a piece of string half the length of the diameter of the circle, with a piece of stick tied to each end. One stick is then driven into the ground in the centre of the circle, and a line is traced with a stick at the other extremity of the string which is drawn out quite tight. An oval is made by tracing two circles, the circumscribing line of one of which just touches the centre of the other; short lines are afterwards made at the top and bottom, and the central lines are obliterated. A square only requires a peg at each corner, with a chalked string drawn from peg to peg; and an oblong, or parallelogram, is made by joining two common squares, and taking off the corners if required.

A heart-shaped pattern (fig. 9.) is made by drawing a straight line from a to b, and then fixing a peg with a string tied to it, half the length of the straight line, and another peg at the end, exactly in the middle of the line, and drawing a half-circle with it; then taking a peg with a string half the length of the other, and another peg tied

Fig. 9.

to the end, and tracing with it the smaller halfcircles, c and d. With the same strings and pegs you may easily trace, or rather have traced, figs. 10 and 11. Even the latter, which appears at first

sight a very difficult figure to form on the ground, will be just as easily traced as the others. You will observe, that in all these figures the straight line is only to serve as a guide to show the proper places for fixing the pegs; and that it is only to be formed by a piece of string stretched by pegs from one end of the figure to the other, which is to be removed as soon as the figure is sketched, and which is not to be traced on the ground at all.

With the aid of these figures, and the pegs and strings, several very complicated gardens may be formed; for instance, that shown in fig. 12. This garden is composed of a bed in the centre for a tree rose with a circle of dwarf roses; a gravel walk surrounds these; and there are five heart-shaped beds, which may be planted with Scarlet Pelargoniums, yellow Calceolarias, Petunias white and purple, and tall yellow Mimulus;

nas.

Fig. 12. Plan for a Flower-Garden.

and the crescent-shaped beds, which are on grass, may all be planted with different kinds of VerbeThis plan is also a good design for a rosery, the roses to be planted in the beds, and in the half crescents which must be on grass, with gravel walks between the grass plots.

All the beds intended for bulbs and half-hardy plants should be particularly well drained; and the best way of doing this is, to dig out the soil to the depth of two feet or more, and then to put in a layer of brick-bats and other rubbish, to the depth of nine inches or a foot. On this should be placed

a layer of rich marly soil, in which the bulbs should be planted. Dahlias, hollyhocks, and other tall-growing, showy-flowered plants, may have similar beds prepared for them, but the soil should be made very rich by the addition of the remains of an old hotbed, or some other kind of half-rotten animal manure.

You will observe, that when I give directions for planting the beds in any of the plans I send you, I merely say what may be done, and not what is absolutely necessary. Indeed, it will be better for you to vary the flowers as much as possible, according to your own taste, provided you take care that the plants are, as nearly as you can contrive it, of the same height, or that they rise gradually, and that you contrast the colours well. The rule in the latter case is, always to put one of the primitive colours (red, blue, or yellow) next another of these colours, or some colour compounded of the other two; using white wherever you cannot find any handsome plants of a colour that will suit the bed you want them for. Thus, for example, if you plant one bed with red, you may plant the next with blue, yellow, green, hairbrown, or white, but never with any shade of purple, as red enters into the composition of that colour; nor with any shade of reddish brown: purple, indeed, must always be next yellow, hair-brown, or white, but never next blue, red

brown, or red. Orange will not look well near yellow or red; and lilac must not approach blue or pink. A little practice will do more than any lengthened details; generally speaking, you may take the same taste to guide you in arranging the colours of the flowers in your parterre, that you use in choosing the colours of your dresses; and if you are in any doubt, you have only to colour the beds in the plan, and see how they look; or to stick coloured wafers on a piece of paper for the same purpose.

When you have settled what to plant in the beds of your garden, supposing you to choose the plan fig. 7., you must next think of the beds round it. I should advise these to remain unplanted, unless they are sown with mignonette, or something of that kind. The shrubberies, I have already stated, should, I think, consist chiefly of the finer kinds of hardy evergreens; at least that should which is opposite the windows of your sitting-room. The other shrubbery, which is intended to unite the garden scenery with that of the park, may be planted with rhododendrons, acacias, and kalmias; the rhododendrons being farthest from the walk, and carried a little out into the park, so as to make a broken line, projecting in some places and receding in others, and here and there mixed with bushes of phillyrea, alaternus, holly of various kinds, and cra