If it be asked what branch of handicraft trade, or, to bring matters within a narrower compass, what branch of the building trade is most suitable and most useful for amateurs generally, and householders especially, it must be answered that a knowledge of carpentry and joinery will be found by far the most desirable. Next to this, it is necessary to know something

about painting and glazing, which comes fairly within the province of the amateur Collaterally with these useful arts, paper hanging may be mentioned. It is unlikely that a man will do much smith's work, but even in this it is possible for an amateur to do something, and a slight acquaintance with the arts of brazing, soldering, and working in metals will enable a man to make propagating cases that shall do him good service, and apparatus for heating a small greenhouse, if he have one, at little expense, even if he still leaves it to the peripatetic knife-grinder and tinman to stop up holes in leaking coffee-pots and saucepans, and to renew the damaged bottoms of colanders and milk-strainers.