The dear old-fashioned flower garden, which consisted of little more than a two or three feet border through or around a vegetable garden, is still one of the best places to pass a pleasant hour among outdoor flowers. Here are the Paeonias - "pineys" our mothers called them - Phloxes, Sweet Williams, Hollyhocks, old hundred-leaved Roses, and everything that is the sweetest and best are gathered together. In these old gardens there were few complaints about herbaceous plants dying out. They never died. Why? Because they had plenty of food. The borders always had plenty of top dressing in the fall of the year. We have an idea that much of the difficulty found in growing lilies comes from the poverty of the soil. No better investment can be made by those who love hardy flowers than to give them a top dressing of rotten manure in the fall of the year.

Many persons use fresh manure for protecting roses and other half-hardy things. In this fresh condition it contains much salt, and many things are killed instead of being protected by it.

In like manner it is not wise to put leaves for protection thickly over plants. It holds moisture and rots instead of protects, and often breeds mildew which is as bad as cold. It is bright light together with frost that injures plants, and enough leaves to shade is all that is required. This is why evergreens, such as Rhododendrons and Kalmias, suffer in winter so much. Something to keep off the sun is as beneficial as something to keep out the frost. For this reason the ground itself is a good protector. It has long been known that raspberries, grapes, figs, and similar fruits can be taken care of by bending the branches and covering with earth. Roses and many half hardy things can be covered with earth and preserved the same way.

Seeds of herbaceous or border flowers, if sown before winter, will bloom next year; but these also should have a few leaves or other material placed over or they will be drawn out by frost.

Drawing out, however, only occurs badly in soil that retains water. It is the water in the soil that freezes, not the soil. Hence much attention is given by gardeners to draining away all standing water. This is why carriage roads and pathways through grounds require draining. In undrained roads, after frost the ice is pushed up in the form of crystals, and one walking over seems to be walking through snow. When walks are well drained the ground is nearly as hard in summer as in winter. One of the advantages of a Telford road in this country is that the water drains away better than in an ordinary Macadam. In a Telford road large stones are set edgewise, and only a few inches of broken material are put on the surface. In a Macadam road the whole is broken stone, the larger at the bottom and in layers of smaller sizes until the whole is finished. The arrangement of carriage roads is one of the most important elements in making a successful piece of landscape gardening. There are few things more difficult in gardening than this locating of a main road, and it is just here that it requires the skill of a thorough landscape gardener. Any thick head may be able to make a well drained and good driving road. It is the direction so many fail in.

Good architects also often fail to be equal to the occasion of designing a good country home. Three-story city houses are often given for country houses, just as if there were not land enough to spread out. In our notice of the residence of Mr. Geo. W. Childs, the publisher of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, we noted among its commendable features, that though very large, it was but two and a half stories high. Annexed we give a cut of another commendable house of this kind, from the Hudson river region. It is the residence of A'. C. Richards, Esq., at Irvington-on-the-Hudson. The estate is known as " Ridge View".