* Cottage Gardener, vol. viii., p. 355.

"A spirit haunts the year's last hours, Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers :

To himself he talks. For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh,

In the walks. Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers; Heavily hangs the broad sun-flower

Over its grave in the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger lily."

Amid all the decay and death of this season, few things, to the ordinary observer, are more repulsive than the rapid growth of fungi; on trees, on grass plots and borders, these evil-reputed things spring up, adding, by their slimy and poisonous appearance, to the desolate feeling of dreary autumn days. Yet, see what a poetical charm can be thrown around even these by one who, in an earnest study of God's works, has learned to call nothing "common or unclean."

"Fungi are intimately associated with autumn; unrobed prophets, that see no sad visions themselves, but that bring to us thoughts of change and decay. Indeed, so close is this association, that they may be called autumn's peculiar plants. The blue bell still lingers in the sod, and in the woods a few bright but evanescent and scentless flowers appear, but fungi and fruits form the wreath that encircles the sober and melancholy brow of autumn : fruits, the death of flower life; fungi, the resurrection of plant death. This tribe of plants comes in at a peculiarly seasonable time, when the more aristocratic members of the vegetable kingdom have departed, leaving the favourite haunts of the botanist bare and destitute of interest. Their collection in the field, and the study of their peculiarities in the closet, will furnish ample occupation of a most absorbing and fascinating nature during the whole season."*

* "Footnotes from the Page of Nature."

Thus even the damp, dull days of autumn may produce pleasure in our garden, even in what makes it dreary, and it is wise to look on the bright side, and to dwell rather on the changing glories of the season and the clear brightness of its days and moonlight nights, than on the sadder vein which it naturally suggests:-

"Nay, William, nay, not so! the changeful year, In all its due successions, to my sight Presents but varied beauties, transient all, All in their season good. These falling leaves, That, with their rich variety of hues, Make yonder forest in the slanting sun So beautiful, in you awake the thought Of winter, - cold, drear winter, when the trees Each like a fleshless skeleton shall stretch Its bare, brown boughs; when not a flower shall spread Its colours to the day, and not a bird Carol its joyaunce; but all nature wear One sullen aspect, bleak and desolate, To eye, ear, feeling, comfortless alike. To me their many-coloured beauties speak Of times of merriment and festival, The year's best holiday : I call to mind The schoolboy days, when in the falling leaves I saw, with eager hope, the pleasant sign Of coming Christmas.

To you the beauties of the autumnal year Make mournful emblems, and you think of man Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirit-broken, Bending beneath the burden of his years, Sense dull'd and fretful, 'full of aches and pains,' Yet clinging still to life. To me they shew The calm decay of nature, when the mind:

Retains its strength, and in the languid eye,

Religion's holy hopes kindle a joy,

That makes old age look lovely." - Southey.

It may seem strange that I have brought the pleasures of a garden on to the end of autumn without reference to either fruits or vegetables, as if it were thought that what tended to profit did not also afford pleasure. Practically, this department of gardening is so generally left to the gardener's care, the results being all we enjoy, that I have not ventured on so extensive a theme:-the culture of fruit and vegetables I feel quite beyond my province and my power.

Yet I by no means despise either, and the garden would lose much of its charm were the ornamental alone allowed to prevail, and our autumn arrive ungladdened by golden fruit; though it is seldom that much benefit is derived from it here, the neighbourhood of a town exposing the garden to the frequent annoyance of juvenile depredators. It is partly from this cause that, for some years, the fruit crop has ceased to be an object of much interest; for as surely as an apple, pear, or plum-tree had been watched from its spring-time of snowy blossoms to its autumn of ripened fruit, so surely was it found some morning stripped and bare. So we took more to the smaller fruits - gooseberries, currants, raspberries, and strawberries; though even on these, the influence of a neighbouring large town pre-vailed, although in a different way. Fruit and vegetables could be bought at a cheaper rate than they could be reared; so why, it was argued, take up space and time with what can be so easily procured ! By degrees, therefore, flower-beds and grass usurped the room once devoted to the kitchen garden, the fruit and vegetables were shoved aside, and the place, half-grudgingly, left for them, is shady-enough to break a gardener's heart. I suspect, however, that this superseding of our fruits and flowers is felt to be a mistake, by our young friends especially. What delight it used to be, in one's own youthful days, to have unrestrained access to an old-fashioned garden, whose wealth of gooseberries, currants, and raspberries seemed inexhaustible, and from whence many a basket of peas, artichokes, or cauliflower was sent to those "in city pent." True, the borders contained little beside the damask and cabbage roses, except sweetwilliams, gardeners'-garters, blue-bottles, and balm; but in those days one would not have given a green-gascon or honey-blob gooseberry-bush, laden with its sweet fruit, for all the gladioli or verbenas that now afford so much pleasure. That garden, with its broad grass walks, its holly hedges, its luxuriant crops, is now no more; its site is covered with trim villas, each with its carefully-kept garden plot, and the owners are, no doubt, happy in this more circumscribed sphere; but those who knew the garden, and its kind owners, may be excused a sigh for the past, and will wonder whether there can be any such enjoyment to the young within iron rails, and among gravel walks, and formal borders, as there was once on the same spot, when we crossed and recrossed the borders at will, and might climb the old mossy pear-trees, and gather what we liked, when we liked, and as much as we liked.

So far as even the pleasures of the garden are concerned, I must admit that theory and practice are not at one; for, if both can be had, fruit and vegetables are a great addition to the enjoyment of a garden; if both cannot be had, then let each choose for himself to which to give the preference; in either case, one is sure of a reward. The mere culture of plants seems to me to bring its own enjoyment, and the successful rearing of flower and fruit admits others to share in the benefit; for is it not one of the highest of our garden pleasures, to have enough to share with those who are debarred from such simple luxuries 1 Above all, to have an offering to send to the sick, - for truly one must have, at some time or other, lived in a town, or been confined to a sick-room, so as fully to know the value of fresh flowers, or fruit, or even of the more homely basket of vegetables.

Amongst the closing pleasures of autumn is to be numbered the getting our bedded-out plants safely lifted and secured in the greenhouse for next year's use. The possession of even a small greenhouse is a source of great winter enjoyment, and it enables us to keep through that time most of the more tender, and all the half-hardy plants that make the garden gay in summer. Little heat is necessary for these; the fire need only be kindled in frost, or now and then to dry the house, when damp (our great winter enemy) threatens to kill our favourites. Those who have not a greenhouse, may manage to keep the plants alive in frames; but these need to be attended to, both as respects covering the glass in frost, and admitting air daily in fine weather, and, somehow or other, this part of amateur gardening seems generally apt to be neglected.

About the end of autumn is a good time for transplanting and dividing plants that have outgrown the proper dimensions; rearranging the borders, and carrying out any alterations that have been planned during summer. It requires some patience to wait till October or November for these changes, and, no doubt, it is not so pleasant to execute them then as it would be in finer weather; but the impatience that leads one to do things at a wrong season generally brings its own punishment : the transplanted shrubs wither, or get such a check in their growth, that more time is lost in the end by our indiscreet haste. This pleasant part of our work may be prolonged during the fine days of early winter, and to that season we must now turn.