Spring flower-gardening is not attempted here to any great extent, but still some of the most prominent flower-beds are filled with bulbs in the autumn, when their summer beauty has passed away.

Foremost among these bulbs receiving attention is the Hyacinth; one bed - a circular one - is filled with the largest bulbs, planted in rings 9 inches apart, the bulbs being planted about 6 inches deep. The soil undergoes no preparation for the Hyacinths, as it is made quite rich enough with leaf-mould when the summer planting takes place; and as the subsoil in the flower-garden here is sand, they have a soil suitable to their wellbeing, otherwise I should mix. some sand with the soil when I plant, as I believe bulbs of all kinds for winter planting require it. I never protect the Hyacinth at all from the time they are planted till they are taken up, and the same bulbs have been planted for several years, and a most charming bed they make. As the offsets increase rapidly, I have this year used the smaller ones for an edging for two large beds filled with early Tulips, and Narcissi both single and double.

Were it more generally known that the Hyacinth is so valuable a plant for outdoor decoration, the bulbs would not be thrown to the rubbish heap, as is often the case, after blooming in pots; instead of which they should be planted in a bed of light soil to perfect their growth, and when their foliage is quite ripe, the bulbs should be taken up and put into drawers or boxes till planting-time comes round in the autumn.

I trust what I have stated above may interest many of your amateur readers, and I will now give you an experience of fifteen years' gain by a real amateur (Mr Kidd), an officer of the Inland Revenue Department of the Government. Mr Kidd cultivates the Hyacinth in a villa garden at the front of his residence at Stanstead, Montfitchet, two miles from here, where I have seen them in bloom for the last three years. On the occasion of my last visit to Mr Kidd, on the 18th of April, there could be seen from eight to ten dozen Hyacinths in full bloom; and Mr Kidd informed me that he first began to grow his Hyacinths with three bulbs, one each of red, white, and blue colours; and now they consisted principally of these three colours, and he has scarcely bought a Hyacinth during this time, except a dozen of red ones this last autumn, having more white and blue flowers than red ones; and such a display as was then made was worth walking ten miles to see.

The bulbs were growing in a gravelly soil, and apparently a very poor one; still the Hyacinths, Crocuses, and Tulips, both early and late kinds, were in most luxuriant growth both as regards foliage and bloom. William Plester.

Elsenham Hall Gardens.