We came down to our little Surrey garden, only sixteen miles from London, for good yesterday; and though the wind be ever so cold and the skies ever so grey, I yet feel that that which makes going to London worth while is the joy of coming back again. The ceaseless interest of a garden of this sort is in the variety, not only of the plants, but in the actual growth caused by the different seasons. This year the winter has been very mild, and dry too, which is unusual-and then came a very wet March, such as I do not remember since we have lived in Surrey, these fourteen years. It is really amusing to watch all that happens consequent on these whims of the weather; the early and late, the wet and the dry, all making immense difference in the plants. Some are successful one year, and some another.

Nothing is more charming just now than the Forsythias. They are absolutely hardy, but they flower best on walls, even a north one, as the birds are extremely fond of the buds and can get at them much better when the plant is grown as a bush. The birds always seem to be extraordinarily destructive in this garden; but I see that most gardeners, in their books, make the same complaint, and rather apologise to the common-sense of their readers for cherishing and feeding instead of destroying them. In my garden I hang up on the trees, the pump, or shaded railings, little boxes with part of one side cut out for the birds to build in, and with lids that lift up for me to have the pleasure of looking at them. The fact is, birds do quite as much good as harm, though the harm is the more apparent; and who would have a garden without song ?

The Crown Imperials are in full flower. They, like many other bulbs in this light soil, reproduce themselves so quickly that they want to be constantly lifted, the small bulbs taken away and put in a nursery (if you wish to increase your stock), and the large ones replaced, in a good bed of manure, where you want them to flower the following year. It is best, if possible, to do this in June, when the leaves have died down, but not quite disappeared so that the place is lost; one can, however, always find them in the autumn by their strong smell when the earth is moved beside them.

The orange Crown Imperials do best here, so, of course, I feel proudest of the pale yellow. Both colours are unusually good this year. In my youth they were rather sniffed at and called a cottage plant. I wonder if anyone who thought them vulgar ever took the trouble to pick off one of the down-hanging bells and turn it up to see the six drops of clear water in the six white cups with black rims? I know nothing prettier or more curious amongst flowers than this. I have not got the white one, but must try and get it; I am told it is very pretty, and so it must be, I should think. The lovely little Omphalodes verna ('Blue-eyed Mary,' Mr. Robinson calls it) is in flower under my trees. The soil is too dry for it to flourish very successfully, and yet it is always worth growing everywhere. Next year I shall try lifting it in March and putting it into pots. The great thing is to remember that it divides and propagates much better in early spring than in autumn. The graceful, pale grey anemone Robinsoniana is doing better this year. Now that it has taken hold, I hope it may spread.

All the early tulips and some of the later are out; what delicious things they are ! None are better than Gesneriana greigi and sylvestris. The beautiful Parrot Tulips will come later. Ornithogalum nutans is a weed most people dread to get into their borders, and not unnaturally; but if put in a place where spreading does no harm, or planted in grass, where it does not flourish very much, it is a bulb well worth growing. It blooms better if divided every two or three years. The flowers are very lovely when cut, and, like all their tribe, they last well in water, looking most refined and uncommon, and are especially good to send to London. I do not make many remarks here on the lovely family of spring bulbs-Tulips, Scillas, Hyacinths, Daffodils, and Narcisses-for the same reason that I passed casually over the forced ones in February. We can all grow these easily enough by marking the catalogue and paying the bill. Anybody who does not understand their cultivation will find every detail on the subject in the older gardening books, as I have stated before. Of all the Dutch nurserymen from whom I have bought bulbs, J. J. Thoolen at Overveen, near Haarlem, is the cheapest, though I do not say that he is better or worse than any other. In my experience, all the finer kinds of bulbs are better for taking up in June or July, well dried in the sun, and planted again in September. When they are planted in grass they must, of course, be left alone to take their chance. Nothing can be more delightful than the spring bulbs. I grow them in every way I can-in pots, in beds, in borders, and in the grass.

Besides the Bulbs, the Arums, and the Azaleas, I have in the little greenhouse next the drawing-room several very pretty Primula sieboldii: they remain in the frames in pots during the summer, to die down entirely, and are re-potted in the autumn. They are hardy, and will grow out of doors, but the blooms do not then reach to such perfection. There is a large box filled with the last of the Neapolitan Violets and a pan of Saxifraga wallacei, one of the most effective of the smaller Saxifrages. I never succeeded with it out of doors till I divided it in June, planting it in the shade, and in October I replaced it in the sunny bed for spring flowering. In that way it can be increased to any amount. This treatment I pursue with many plants:-Heuchera sanguinea, one of the most precious of the Canadian flowers, and the best worth cultivating, especially in small gardens. The pretty Saxifraga granulata flore pleno disappeared year after year till treated more or less in this way. In June, when the leaves die down, the little bulblets are taken up and planted in groups in a shady place. They make their leaves in October, when it is easy to move them back into the border or onto the rockery where they are to flower. The double flower is of a very pure white, and its long stalk adapts it well for glass vases and table decoration. The large sweet-smelling double white Rocket, which I mentioned before as growing so well in the damp Hertfordshire garden, defeated me altogether for some years; it made a fair growth of leaves, but never flowered. Now it succeeds perfectly. After flowering, we break it up, put it into a shady place, and replant it in the borders in the autumn. All this sounds very troublesome, but it is really not so at all, as it is so quickly done. The only trouble is remembering when to do the things; but that soon comes with practice, and the time of year always recalls what was done the year before to the true gardener. Everybody recognises this treatment as necessary for violets, double and single-which, indeed, do not flower well without it. The invaluable Imanto-phyllums, which began to flower in the warm greenhouse in January, are doing so still: so are the Arums, which people insist on calling 'Lilies.' They are not lilies at all, but belong to the same family as the * Lords and Ladies' and 'Cuckoo Pint' of our hedges. The large greenhouse Arums come from the Cape, where they are an absolute weed, appearing wherever the ground is disturbed or turned up. They are there called Pig Lilies, perhaps because they feed the pigs on the roots. In the damp places, I am told, they are magnificent, growing finer and larger than they ever do in pots in England; at the same time, when they come up in dry and heathy places, they are perfect miniature plants with delicate little flowers like shells. Arums in pots require lots of water while growing and flowering, and are better for a saucer to hold it.

A beautiful crimson Amaryllis, which I brought back from Guernsey some years ago, is in flower. It has never flowered before; but we understand so much better than we did the drying and ripening in the sun of all the Cape bulbs, and this makes the whole difference to their flowering.