This is essentially the month of forced bulbs-Hyacinths, Tulips, Jonquils, Narcissuses-charming things in themselves, and within easy reach of everyone who can afford to buy them either as bulbs in the autumn or as cut flowers from the shops in spring. Bulbs do not even require a greenhouse, as they can be grown in a cellar and then in a frame, or, with care, quite as successfully in a room with a south window. They depend on attention, and the result is so certain that they are not very interesting to the gardener, nor do they represent any variety of greenhouse culture. All the spring bulbs are cultivated in much the same way. Any of the old garden books published between 1840 and 1850, especially Mrs. Loudon's 'Gardening for Ladies,' give detailed instructions on the growing of bulbs in pots and glasses, and in all other ways.

One of my great pleasures in London in the early spring is going to the exhibition of the Royal Horticultural Society, at the Drill Hall, Westminster. I think all amateurs who are keen gardeners ought to belong to this society-partly as an encouragement to it, and also because the subscriber of even one guinea a year gets a great many advantages. He can go to these fortnightly exhibitions, as well as to the great show at the Temple Gardens in May, free, before the public is admitted. He has the run of the society's library in Victoria Street; he receives free the yearly publications, which are a series of most interesting lectures (I will give some account of them at the end of the year); and he is annually presented with a certain number of plants. These fortnightly meetings at the Drill Hall are instructive and varied, though they might be much more so. Nevertheless, I think an amateur cannot go to them without learning something, and I am surprised to find how few people take advantage of them. The entrance fee is only a shilling. I went to one of these exhibitions the other day. The great mass of blooms shown consisted of beautifully grown potfuls of Cyclamens in great variety of colour, and of Chinese Primulas; these last, to my mind, are rather uninteresting plants, but they show great improvement in colour as now cultivated. What pleased me most were miniature Irises, grown in flat pans, and some charming spring Snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) grown in pots. These are far more satisfactory grown in this way than are the finest Snowdrops in pots, their foliage being so much prettier. The little blue Scillas are extremely effective grown in pans through a carpet of the ordinary mossy Saxifrage.