To-day there has come up from the country one of the spring gems of the year, a large bunch of the lilac Daphne, the old Mezereum. It is a small shrub, not a quick grower, and most people, especially gardeners, are afraid to cut it. But if this is done bravely at the time of flowering, I think it only grows stronger and flowers better the following year, and you get the benefit of the exceedingly fragrant blossoms. For a few hours the whole of a London house smells sweeter for its presence. Its perfume is peculiar and not quite like anything else I know. The common lilac sort alone seems easy to grow-at least, the white one I have tried has died; but then one must always say in gardening, ' That is probably my fault; I must try again.' No garden, however small, ought to be without this plant. It likes peat and moisture, but is not particular.

Yesterday I paid a visit to the Horticultural College at Swanley, with its branch for women students. It immediately struck me as quite possible that a new employment may be developed for women of small means out of the modern increased taste for gardening. In many of the suburban districts the dulness of the small plots of ground in front of the houses is entirely owing to the want of education in the neighbouring nurserymen, whose first idea is always to plant Laurels or other coarse shrubs. The owners of such villas have little time to attend to the garden themselves. A lady gardener might easily undertake to lay out these plots in endless variety, supplying them throughout the year with flowers and plants suited to the aspect of each garden. The smaller the space, the more necessary the knowledge of what is likely to succeed. Another opening may be found in cases of larger villas, where single ladies might prefer a woman head-gardener with a man under her to do the rougher and heavier work. The maintaining of a garden and the tending of a greenhouse is work particularly suited to women of a certain age. A small greenhouse never can be productive of flowers for picking through the dull months without a great deal of thought, care, and knowledge. It seemed to me that the lady pupils at Swanley were too young to profit by the instruction. The parents who sent them there evidently looked upon it as an ordinary school. Surely eighteen or twenty is a better age than sixteen for a woman to know whether she really wishes to learn gardening professionally or not. The employment of women as gardeners is still very much in embryo, although two of the Swanley pupils have been accepted at Kew.