A correspondent who has had much to do with the staggering task of making pictures for catalogues, desires us to publish the following from the London Garden:

"It is.said that even the humble worm will 'turn again"' - if trodden upon too often. There cannot be a more humble and inoffensive individual than the horticultural artist. I, alas ! am one. I have no pretensions to independence of thought or hand; I am a mere nurseryman's drudge. I am not benefitted when I portray a dingy dwarf as a gorgeous giant. I merely do what my kind employer tells me; he pays me my humble pittance, rubs my name off my work, and publishes my picture. Sir, I am so well acquainted with nurserymen's requirements, that I have in constant use a ' nurseryman's proportional compass ' - devised by myself; there is a movable screw in the middle, so that one end may be made to open twice, thrice, four, or even five or six times more than the other. If I have a plant from Mr. Swaggs, I move the screw to Mr. Swaggs' mark, and I measure with the small end and draw with the big one. If Mr. Pelter sends me a plant, I move the screw to Mr. Pelter's mark, and I always give satisfaction. I call my compass a ' horticultural florometer.' When young I did not like these exaggerations, and I trembled for my reputation and honesty, but my chief nurseryman told me it was all right, as 'he always rubbed the artist's name off.'

"I was also not long in learning that nurserymen not only hold the poor draughtsmen in slavery, but that they 'had' the publishers as well. For instance, Mr. Topper writes to his publisher, ' Dear Mr. Sycophant, - If you will send your artist to paint my new magnificent Mimulus. I will take 500 copies of your monthly magazine.' When the submissive artist goes to the rich nurseryman he is told that all the best Mimuluseshave 'gone off;' that a few poor blooms are left, but they are not one-quarter the size of those just 'gone off.' If the inoffensive artist will draw these small flowers exactly four times the size of nature, they will well represent the missing blooms. Should the poor drudge remonstrate, a threat is held out that the 500 copies will be cancelled, and Mr. Sycophant, the publisher, will come down on the draughtsman 'like a thousand of bricks.' Well, sir, I made a mistake once, and I did quietly enjoy it - behind my master's back. There was a plant race : Two nurserymen were each madly eager to get a 'new plant' out first. Mr. Swiggers sent the blooms on to me by post in hot haste, with a request that I should get his out first at all risk and an extra half-crown would be my reward.

Sir, I got out my compass - Mr. Swiggers' stretches more than any other man's; I polished the plant off like lightning and got it out first. On the day of its publication I received a letter from Mr. Swiggers' under-secretary summoning me immediately to the plant emporium. Of course I went - instantly. Mr. Swiggers was there with dilated eyes, hair on end, and his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth - speechless. At last he said, 'Oh ! Mr. Staggers, 1 tremble under the blow you have put upon me: the plant my young man sent was a dwarf variety, and ought to have been shrunk in size at least three times; whereas you have enlarged it with your peculiar compass six times. I am ruined ! I am ruined ! You artists are a bad lot; you have got no sense.' Mr. Swiggers took good care never again to employ the inoffensive Staggers".