"How do you manage to keep your north windows full of flowers all winter?" was asked of the writer not long since. While claiming nothing original or unusual in the management - for there is a certain "management" about it - it might perhaps be of service to some unfortunate believer in the no-flowers-in-a-north-window theory, to give in the Monthly the reply given to the above question.

The windows above referred to are two long windows reaching to the floor, and facing northeast. To begin with early October, fuchsias, tuberous-rooted begonias, salvias and carnations. All but the last flower quite as well, and last much longer in full beauty than if exposed to full sunshine.

Chrysanthemums are by this time showing color. By first bringing in the most advanced ones, and following them up by later sorts, Christmas is reached with but little diminution of attractiveness. Like most other flowers, they remain in perfection three times as long as when in full sunlight.

During this time the geraniums are kept in a south window. A chamber where it does not get cold enough to freeze is a good place, or any south or southeast exposure, where they can get the benefit of the sunshine three or four hours daily. They will soon be full of buds, and as soon as they begin to open they are placed at these north windows, and go on blossoming as if nothing had happened. The trusses average a full month without fading, and the individual flowers are much larger than if bloomed in a south window. By a little care in changing them occasionally, giving each their turn in the south windows, there is no difficulty about having an abundance of geraniums in perfection in north windows till May. Of course these plants are not old ones that have flowered all summer, and become exhausted, but young plants, rooted in the spring - or at the latest in August - and specially grown for the purpose by being kept in pots and the buds rubbed off through the summer.

Chinese primroses and oxalis also bloom finely in a northern exposure, and these need no preliminary preparation. I had in October some young plants of Salvia splendens, which came up from self-sown seed. Some of them have been in flower ever since, and still are at this writing, January 18, and one has not yet bloomed but is full of buds. They are kept in the north windows continually. Among annuals, Nicotiana suaveo-lens succeeds admirably. Given the same treatment as geraniums, it will go on flowering for three months without a ray of sunshine. I am trying for the first time this winter, the Calendula, or double pot marigold, treating them as I do the Nicotiana. They are marvels of luxuriant growth, well filled with buds, and just now coming into flower finely. For green and white foliaged plants, I find Geranium Happy Thought, and Coleus Retta Kirkpatrick - this last for the upper shelf - the best and most showy for small plants. For large plants, Palms, Ficus elastica, Cyperus variegata and Aspidistra variegata are all well-known, admirable sorts, beside a host of others.

I only intended, however, to speak of flowering plants in this brief note.