A Michigan exchange speaks of a squash vine which grew so rapidly that the blossoms were killed by being dragged along the ground!

The Garden, as Considered in Literature by Certain Polite Writers. With a Critical Essay, by Walter Howe, 16 mo., pp. 309, with a portrait of William Kent. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. This choice bit of garden literature is made for "all who are fond of gardens and gardening, and who take a certain pleasure in enjoying nature when treated by man as a work of art." The essays are mostly well-known, especially among lovers of letters of nature and gardens, and they are all over a century old. The selection is a careful and varied one ; all of them may be considered garden classics. There are extracts from the Plinys, Lord Bacon, Sir William Temple, The Spectator, The Guardian, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Thomas Whately, Oliver Goldsmith, Horace Walpole and John Evelyn.

The compiler is certainly a person of taste. None other would have hit upon these gems. Mr. Howe's essay is an appreciative discussion of some of the choicer literature of gardens, and a presentation of the progress of taste in landscape gardening. He shows that ornamentation of landscape was at first but an architectural labor, and it was suggested by features of the hall and edifice. Gardens were mere settings for people of fashion, where "they and their guests posed before each other like the beauties and gallants of Watteau." The reaction from this intense artificialism was gradual in its beginnings, but it burst forth almost suddenly in its applications. William Kent was the leader in this revolution, and Walpole was his apostle who wrote of his plans and ideas. In the record of this dawn of reformation, or rather of evolution and purification of taste, we miss any reference to the writings of Pope. The poet certainly exercised a considerable influence upon the gardening of the time, and although it is slight as compared with the labors of later writers, it was probably more than that of Marie Antoinette, Jussieu and Richard. Mr. Howe supposes, and with reason, that the fluctuations in taste in landscape gardening are correlated with changes in other fine arts, as painting, music and architecture.

Those who have seen the " Knickerbocker Nuggets," of which series this volume is a part, need not be told that in daintiness of execution it has never been excelled. One's appreciation of the garden must be at once elevated if he only handles such an attractive book.