ful of "Mother Flora's" children. They are very valuable and deservedly great favourites on account of the beauty of their blossoms and the ease with which they may be raised, so long as they have a good rich soil and are carefully protected from frost. Few plants have so well rewarded the pains of the cultivator, for from about half a dozen original kinds have been produced several hundreds of beautiful varieties.

It would be well to consider at this point the manner in which new varieties are obtained, for though the ordinary method of raising young plants is from cuttings, these will only produce flowers like the plant from which they are taken. In order to obtain a new variety the gardener collects seed from the finest plants, sows them in a rich soil and places them in a hot bed. When the seedlings are grown, and ready to be planted out; perhaps out of some hundreds he will only have one which will produce a sufficiently handsome flower to keep as a new variety. See here now how much care and patience is required to raise even one new sort, by which we mean one varying in colour and form, from any we have seen before. A new plant will usually fetch a high price, but when it has been

out a year or two, it is more easy to get, as many more can be obtained by taking cuttings, a work with which most of us have some acquaintance. The cuttings must be taken from the healthy green shoots, they should be cut through a joint about the fourth or fifth from the top. As we always see the good gifts equally distributed, the smaller and meaner of these gay plants have the sweetest perfume, which, by the way, is found in the leaves and not in the flowers, such as the Musk Stork's Bill, emitting when handled a strong perfume of Musk, the Lemon and Rose Scented, &c.

Although many of the Geranium tribe are very costly, yet several beautiful kinds come within reach of all, and plentifully reward the careful cultivation which they receive at the hands of the humbler classes, whose window sills are often adorned by very fine specimens of these richly coloured flowers, the possessors of which not unfrequently carry off, with feelings of some pride, the prizes from the Cottagers' Flower Show.

These exhibitions are popular throughout the whole of England, and are very successful in encouraging and developing the love of flowers.

There are prizes, too, given to children for the best and most varied collection of wild flowers, and for bouquets of different kinds of grasses, thus teaching them to use their eyes, and to observe the beauties of nature, when they go for a country ramble; prizes are also given for the most tastefully arranged bunch of garden flowers, and the children quite enjoy and take pleasure in their part of the Flower Show. The Queen of England, who always takes great interest in anything that promotes the welfare or pleasure of her people, has given orders that every year the gardeners at Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, &c., are to send all the Geraniums that they can spare to the clergy in the different poor districts in London, for them to distribute to the deserving poor in their parishes, who take care of the plants during the winter, and in the next year the cherished Geraniums may enable their owners to win a prize at the Cottagers' Flower Show.

As we read of these and many other plants, that in order to obtain the result which is desired, we must go on labouring earnestly and patiently under, it may be, many disappointments, so may we learn that in any fault in our own lives, which

we have to conquer, or any virtue we desire to gain, we must go on earnestly and perseveringly, striving after the patient continuance in welldoing of which St. Paul speaks in his Epistle to the Romans.

"God will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and honour and immortality, Eternal Life."

The Crocus.

'Tis February's changeful mood
When eve to morn is seldom true,
And day which broke gusty and rude
Oft shuts in skies of softest hue,
In mild repose one sun goes down,
The next comes up with murky frown;
But scarce hath tolled the hour of day
When glittering roll those frowns away.

E'en now with saffron veil'd head
Half timid and half venturesome,
Tired of her ten months' deep laid bed,
The Crocus hails her time to come;
Nor is she of the delicate

To shrink from her allotted state;
But wears a cheerful hardy brow,
That dashes off with frost and snow.

Yet prudent are her ways the while,
Both warmth and tempests to foresee,
Nor will she, save the clear heavens smile,
Ope her rich cargo to the bee.

In vain the errant creature comes

And round the fast closed clusters hums:

But let the sun unfold his rays,

And these unfold-in what a blaze!