On a table below the chimney-piece is a small flower-glass filled with a pretty early greenhouse flower, orange and red, called Chorozemia, which does well in water. I have made a considerable study of the things that last well in water, as my greenhouse room is very limited, and it has to hold all the plants that are planted out next summer. The usual Primula sinensis, Cinerarias, and many other things die before they get up to London at all. In summer the study is for the sake of my friends, as I send away flowers in large quantities, and I know nothing so disappointing as to receive in London a box of flowers, none of which are capable of reviving when put into water. On the table, by the side of the glass mentioned above, stands a little saucer with precious, sweet-smelling Geranium leaves. These float on the water, patterning the white surface of the saucer, and supporting the delicious scented flowers, so valuable in January, of the Chimonanthus fragrans, with its pretty brown and yellow petals growing, as they do, on the bare branches of the shrub. My plant of Chimonanthus is against a wall. It flowers every year with a little care, for it is not very old, but it does not grow in our light soil with the strength and luxuriance it acquires in clay or loam. In Hertfordshire, for instance, quite long branches can be cut from it, which look very beautiful in the Japanese wedges. Our plant gets sufficiently pruned by cutting back the flowering branches. We water it thoroughly with liquid manure when the leaves are forming in May, and mulch it with rotten manure in October. Jasminum nudiflorum, which also flowers well in the winter with us, we treat in the same way, only pruning out whole branches when it has done flowering in spring. No general cutting-back is desirable, as that spoils the growth of the plant for picking next year. In separate different-sized glasses round the saucer I have a bunch of Neapolitan Violets, some Roman Hyacinths, Ivy-leaved sweet Geraniums, and an excessively pretty light-red Amaryllis, from bulbs sent to me this autumn straight from Mauritius, which flower well in the little stove. All these come from a small greenhouse, part of which is divided off so as to allow of its being kept at stove heat. A fortnight ago we had large bunches of Echeveria retusa, a most useful, easily managed, winter-flowering plant. It looks very well on the dinner-table, and lasts a long time in water. Dividing and re-potting in April, and keeping it on a sunny shelf through the summer, is almost all the care it requires. Freezias, too, are well worth growing. The success of all Cape flowering bulbs seems to depend on the attention paid to the plant while the leaves are still growing. Many gardeners, when they have cut the flowers, neglect the plants. When the leaves die down, the bulbs want well baking and drying up in full sun, laying the pots on their sides, shaking out the bulbs in June or July, sorting them, taking off the young ones, re-potting, and growing on for early forcing.

1 For a description of what this means I must refer you to Mr. J. Conder's interesting book (The Flowers of Japan and the Art of Floral Arrangement), and to a review of it reprinted at the end of this volume, by kind permission of Mr. W. Robinson, from The Garden (37 Southampton Street, Strand) of October 6th, 1894. My allusions to cut-flower decorations all the year round will not be understood without a careful reading of this article.

On a flower-table by the window are glasses with evergreens. I always cut with discretion my Magnolia grandiflora; not a very large plant either, yet I think it does it nothing but good. The clean, shiny, dark-green leaves, with their beautiful rust-red lining, are so effective in a room; and if the stalks are peeled, they last quite a month in water without deterioration. You know, I daresay, the old nursery secret of growing either wheat or canary-seed on wet moss. You fill some shallow pan or small basin with moss, and keep it quite wet. Sow your seed thickly on the moss, and put the pan away in a dark cupboard for nine or ten days. When about two inches high, bring it out and put it in a sunny window, turning it round, so as to make it grow straight. Wheat is white at the base with brave little sword-blades of green, on which often hangs a drop of clear water. Canary-seed is red, like Rhubarb, at the bottom and green at the top. I know nothing more charming to grow in dull town rooms or sick rooms than these two seeds. They come to perfection in about three weeks, and last for another five or six. Grown in small saucers, they make a pretty dinner-table winter decoration. Another rather effective change for a dinner-table is the leaves of Bamboos, put all day into water to prevent them curling up. They are then laid on the table-cloth in a Japanese pattern, according to the taste of the decorator, with an occasional flower to give point to the design. Double red Geraniums, late-flowering Chrysanthemums, Primulas, even clumps of Holly or red berries, all do equally well for this purpose.

Growing acorns, either suspended by a thin wire in a bottle, or planted in wet moss-five or six of them together -in flat pans, are pretty. If put into heat in October, they are in full leaf in the middle of January; but if grown in a cool room, the leaves only expand later.

I think it may be desirable for me to say something each month about cooking. Many people neglect to use things which are now so easily got with or without a garden. This foreign way of cooking Potatoes makes a nice variety:-After partially boiling them, cut the Potatoes into slices when cold, and put them into a saucepan. Cover them with milk to finish cooking them, and add fresh butter, Parsley, pepper, and salt.

Salsifys are quite easily grown, and are very good if thrown into vinegar and water, well boiled, cut into small slices, and warmed up with a white sauce in shells, like scalloped oysters. Add a little cheese and breadcrumbs, and brown in the oven.

No one who cares for vegetables and has a garden should fail to refer constantly to 'The Vegetable Garden,' already mentioned. It is an invaluable book, and the number and variety of the vegetables it describes is a revelation to those who have only the ordinary English idea of the vegetables that are worth growing.

Celeriac is an excellent vegetable, not very common in England, and, when carefully cooked, with a good brown sauce, forms a valuable contribution to the winter supply. One of the constant difficulties in the management of a house, whether large or small, where the vegetables are grown and not bought, is that the gardener brings them in, and the cook throws them away into a corner of the scullery or into the pig-tub. Only last summer a gardener from a large place in the neighbourhood said to me while walking round my small garden: 'What! you grow Cardoons ? I took in beautiful ones last year, but they were never used; the cook said she didn't know how to cook them.' The following is a good recipe:-The length of time Cardoons require in cooking depends on age and size, and varies from half an hour to three or four hours. Scrape the stalks, and pull off all that is thready outside. Cut them into bits about four or five inches long, or longer if served in a long narrow dish with marrow on toast at each end. As you cut them, throw them into a basin full of water, into which you put a little flour to keep them a good colour. When all are prepared, have ready a large crockery stewpan with boiling water, herbs, a little salt and pepper, and a good-sized piece of raw bacon. The rind of the bacon should be cut in little bits, but not so small as to get mixed with the Cardoons. Boil the whole slowly, and prepare a brown sauce apart with well-flavoured stock. Thicken this with flour (burnt to a light-coffee colour), butter, and a little sherry. Let it simmer for two hours, skimming it well. Strain it half an hour before serving.

The American Cranberries, so generally and so cheaply sold in London, are very pretty and very nice if well stewed in a crockery saucepan with water and sugar; a small pinch of powdered ginger brings out their flavour. They are always eaten in America with turkeys, as we eat apple-sauce with goose. Many people do not know that turkeys are natives of America, and that the French word dinde is merely a shortening of coq d'Inde (India being the name given to America for some time after its discovery). It is curious to think that these birds, now so common an article of food at this time of year, were totally unknown to the luxurious Romans. The Cranberries should not be mashed up, but should look like stoned cherries in syrup. They can be eaten with chicken or game, or with roast mutton instead of red-currant jelly. In Norway the small native Cranberry is eaten with any stew, especially with hares and ptarmigan. The custom of eating sweets with meat seems to come to us from Germany and the North; the French hate it. One of the eternal trials to every housekeeper is the making of coffee. I always use half Mocha and half Plantation. When in the country, I roast the beans at home; and the two kinds must be done separately, as they are not the same size. For breakfast coffee a small quantity of ground Chicory-the best French-is a great improvement, and increases the health-giving properties of coffee and milk; but it should never be used for black coffee. The beans should in damp weather be warmed and dried a little before grinding; it freshens them up, as it does biscuits. One of the mysterious reasons for the flat tastelessness of coffee one day and not another is the coffee-grinder not being cleaned out; a tablespoonful of stale ground coffee will spoil the whole. Other reasons are-either the water not boiling, or the water having boiled a long time, or water that has boiled and cooled being warmed up again; this is fatal, as it is with tea. I find the modern crockery percolators a great improvement on the old tin ones, which make very good coffee for a short time; but the lining rubs off, and the tin gets black inside, which will destroy the colour of the best coffee. At Goode's, in Audley Street, or at the Atmospheric Churn Company, in Bond Street, they will sell you any portion of these percolators apart; and the most terrible of breakers can hardly smash everything at once. Many cooks refuse to use Goode's excellent crockery fireproof stewpans, on the plea that they break. But new ones cost no more than the re-tinning of copper stewpans, which has to be done every year. For all stews, and for the cooking of vegetables and fruit, they are invaluable-and, in the case of fruit, indispensable.