IT WOULD seem to be one of the kindly provisions of nature that, at the very time when, if ever, she may be said to be depressing by reason of the outward semblance of death and mourning which she wears, the minds of those of her lovers who delight in gardening are distracted from gloomy autumnal thoughts by visions of a resurrection of beauty in the coming spring. For who that has loved and tended a garden, does not dream of its possibilities another year as soon as the frost and winds begin to dull its brightness ? The cool, invig-orating air, the bright sunshine of these autumn days, invite one irresistibly out of doors; and standing over her desolate flower-beds, the mistress of the place (who, let us take it for granted, is her own head-gardener) plans her little plot of ground anew, and finds a partial solace for her losses in. studying how best to repair them.

When one considers not only the delight and benefit to be derived from work in the open air at this season, but also how much success depends upon it, it is sur-prising that so few amateur gardeners attempt it. The argument that fully one year's time is saved by planting shrubs and nearly all hardy plants in the autumn would be sufficient, one would think, to drive every Phyllis to her trowel. The action of the frost on the upturned soil in the borders will make them doubly productive another summer; moreover, certain plants, such as irises, lilies and paeonies, which, if set out in the spring, will not bloom the same year, yield an abundance of blossoms if planted in the fall.

The beds and borders being deeply and loosely spaded and well enriched, the next thing to be done, obviously, is to decide upon what to put in them. Judging from the way most gardens are made, this can not be a very perplexing question. That it is one which deserves much more thought and consideration than it receives, no one will dispute who has noted the poverty of ideas, the monotony of arrangement in the gardens of suburban and many village homes - a star monogram, or motto of variegated colors, a round bed of scarlet geranium, encircled with alyssum, perhaps, or, quite as often, a sort of crazy-quilt border, in which plants of endless variety crowd each other without the slightest regard for form, harmony of colors and general effect. This is the type of garden that is to be seen a hundred times' during a drive through the suburbs of any large American city. Strangely enough, these geometric designs and hodge-podge flower-borders are found very often about the homes of women of refinement, disciples of Bnrne-Jones and Oscar Wilde in matters of interior decoration, but followers of some ignorant, color-blind gardener of a by-gone generation, who invented the ribbon-bedding system of spoiling lawns. By all means let the gardens abound with hardy flowers.

A. small investment in a well-selected stock of plants that will endure our northern winters pays a compound interest year after year in constantly increasing loveliness and beauty, and what a pleasure to hunt for the first peep above ground of our old favorites as soon as the snow is gone! It is but a tran-sient love, after all, that we have for the tender annuals, lying limp and black after the first frost. The hardy flowers take root more deeply in our affections after a well-tested friendship through fair and stormy weather, and finally become as much a fixed part of the home as the pillars to the porch or the books on the library shelves.

"Infinite riches in a little room" might well refer to these curious sacks of spring-flowering bulbs, which are exported in such quantities from Holland. At least one of these sacks should find its way to every garden, however small. Its treasures are inexhaustible and inexpensive. Snow-drops and scillas that bloom before the first robin has come, surprising one with the news that spring is already here, in spite of bleak winds and gray skies; crocuses "of shades," as the Dutch catalogue describes them; tulips, "a host of yellow daffodils, " narcissus in many exquisite varieties, hyacinths and sweet-scented jonquils - these must all be planted in the autumn before the ground is too much frozen to be easily worked. The ordinary garden soil, well-drained, suits these flowers admirably, a little sand sprinkled around each bulb being the only needful addition to it. It need scarcely be said that these flowers - and the rule has but few exceptions - are most effective when planted each kind by itself.

A bed of large yellow crocuses in the April sunshine looks like a mound of molten gold, or the famous dome of Boston's state house, and what could be more dazzlingly gorgeous than tulips in a mass ? Eve the proverbially bad taste of the Dutchman does not ex-tend to mingling other flowers with his beloved tulips.

Before the last of the Dutch bulbs are in the ground, it is well to set out irises, which follow them into bloom so closely in the spring. The chances are they will flower the next season. And what a royal show they make ! It is quite possible to form a garden of them exclusively ; indeed, a certain college professor devoted his small door-yard to them alone, growing sixty varieties in a plot of ground ten by fourteen feet, and certainly no other garden in the town excited so much admiration. Though the Japanese iris has the most wonderful coloring and form, the German and Spanish varieties, which are smaller, and for that reason excellent to fill in with, should not be over-looked in one's enthusiasm for the Kaempferi species. One of the secrets of artistic gardening lies in surrounding tall-growing plants with low ones, to make them stand oat boldly and effectively.