Twenty-eight year? ago the Editor took pen in hand to prepare the first number of the Gardeners' Monthly. It has been a long term of very hard but very pleasant work. Large numbers of those who subscribed and read what he then wrote have since gone to their long homes, but the homes of those who have taken their places are still to be made beautiful. The elements with which we make beauty are ever new, so that we not only have new readers, but have constantly new things to say to them. But sometimes the old will bear repetition. An old sermon is often as profitable as a new one, and from what we see around us it is worth repeating that thinning out at this season should be the rule in every well-ordered place. Trees and shrubs must be planted thickly at first, or we have to wait half a life-time for shelter or fine effect. A few should be taken out every year. Sidewalk trees especially are almost always too thick after some years. Where the trees are not entirely taken away, judicious pruning is an advantage. Branches should be cut close to their source, so that the wound may heal over. If the scar is large, paint it. The rotting of wood after a branch is cut off often starts decay in the whole tree. Weakly and weatherbeaten evergreens are improved by pruning.

But in their case the leader must be cut at the same time, even though we have to train up a side branch to make another leader. Sometimes rare evergreens raised from grafts or cuttings, show little disposition to make leaders, but they will do it if severely pruned. Poor evergreens are improved also by a top dressing of very rich manure. The spruce family are great lovers of shelter. Where winds are keen and cutting, pines should be employed. The White Austrian and Scotch are still the most approved. For dwarf evergreens to stand wind, nothing equals the dwarf mountain pine. What is known in nurseries as Mugho pine, Mountain, and Dwarf pine, are all forms of one thing. Pinus Cembra is a beautiful plant for cutting by windy situations, and intermediate in growth between the dwarf and the larger pines.

Manure is good for lawns and flowers in beds for the summer, and this should be remembered at this season.

If not yet done, gather in the "bag-worms," especially from evergreen trees; and where the soft cottony cocoons of the Orgyia or "cotton caterpillar" are sheltering on the rough bark of trees, destroy the eggs with a hard brush. Birds are all right to help keep down insects, but a little hard labor is also excellent.

Variety is always pleasing, and at this season study a little how to have differences from last year at little cost. It is often as easy to have change at a small expense, and as pleasing, as when a large sum is involved.

It is a pleasure to note the progress of taste in ornamental gardening. Railroads and public establishments were at one time the leading exemplifications of beastliness in their horticultural surroundings; now they often lead off in garden beauty. Summer boarding-houses for fashionable people were also until recently far back among barbarians, but many of these now have beautiful gardens and grounds. Altogether, we feel proud of our twenty-eight years of labor; for surely we must have had a hand in this progress.