"Chip" sends the following pleasant note: "The first requirements of successful gardening is close and always prompt attention. It is so in every business; but irregularity in gardening is from the first start failure. No matter how fine a theorist, it will help you nothing if you are not prompt in practice. Close observation and study of nature is your surest guide. Take advantage of sunshine; regulate your glass structures at once; in stormy and gusty weather secure as much as you can; start your fires early in cold days. In fact be prompt, always on your guard. Do not think : " I will do this or that, yet a little longer delay will not hurt." My friend, that is just the most fatal to your success. I know some of us have more on hand than we can always properly attend to; but study, with work, helps things along. It is a poor excuse to have no time for study. But always look to your main work first.

"Now, Mr. Editor, whether to publish this, my first attempt of ever writing for the Monthly or any other paper, you are the best judge; and if you find it worthy of space, I hope a well meaning advice will not offend."