Seated by a comfortable fire this very foggy day, the Horticulturist, past, present, and to come, has been much the subject of contemplation; its late editor, present in vivid memory, and constantly recalled by the framed portrait hanging in view. We all lost a friend when Downing died; but Napoleon had an axiom that " no man is indispensable." In the case under consideration, Napoleon would be but half right; for if we profit by the seeds of taste and instruction sown by our departed teacher, we shall yet get along. Good observers are left; and it becomes every one of them, as they value their instructor to club their knowledge, and each one tell what he knows to others.

To have a good garden now-a-days requires study, reading, and practical oversight and knowledge in the owner. The race of gardeners to be procured for moderate wages is not extensive, and when they are good, or "promise well," they can find in this great country, fields of their own. My difficulty has been to keep a good gar1 dener when I had got him. The plans of one year have to be superintended by new hands. If I did not keep a sharp look out, I should never know where my next winter's asparagus and rhubarb, ready to be placed in the forcing beds, were to be found. I would seriously advise no one to incur the expensive parapharnalia of graperies, green-houses, and gardens, unless he loves them well enough to look after them himself. Now and then he will have to do this. He will be a fortunate man, indeed, if he does not find himself as much confined at home sometimes, as a woman is who is so happy as to have an infant at the breast I Twice during this winter I have had to make the fires in the green-house; one gardener took a railway excursion, and was drowned in a canal after stopping at the hotel, and another had an "unexpected" call to get married on a monstrous cold evening.

Neglect rather than incapacity, too frequently deprive proprietors of the just expectations they have entertained with regard to returns for their outlays. Regularity, method, and attention constitute the very essence of gardening, and every deviation from these principles will be injurious to all concerned.

I have amused myself for the first time, this winter, with forcing asparagus. After the first trial I have been successful. My beginning was another evidence that books do not always impart the whole knowledge required. I consulted the best works, got up a fine frame and plenty of manure heat in the proper way, and in due time placed the roots under good earth, much as I plant out-door beds of this delicious article. Up soon came the article, as fine as could be wished; but it was wonderfully "few and far between." Two messes was all I got from this trial. The next was more successful. I planted the roots so as to lap each other as much as possible, and a prodigious yield is the result, so that I have actually supplied several families and my own with fine bunches. This hint will be useful to beginners. The spears derive no nourishment from the ground in this rapid forcing process; all we get is the matter stored up last season, and consequently the spears are not so thick, generally speaking, as in open air cultivation.

Rhubarb forcing, I find easy and cheap. A barrel sawed in half, placed in the stable yard, and covered with fresh manure, with only a breathing hole in the top on mild days, gives me abundance, and very early; but this winter I placed in three such receptacles five roots each, and brought them into a warm closet behind the chimney in the dining room. Presto ! what a growth, and what a beautiful and valuable crop! These fifteen roots are giving me now, and have been all January, as much "pieplant" as we could desire. The growth is most vigorous and really beautiful. I value it much for the latter quality, and sometimes treat a visitor with a peep at my in-door kitchen green-house, to his great surprise.

Salads I have under glass beneath the dining room window - a fine southern exposure; and on occasion of an unexpected neighbor to a cold joint at a late supper, can very conveniently pick it from under the snow without leaving the room. Most delicious it is too, fresh from the case, and picked by your own hands. As this case is robbed, other plants from further off are brought on a mild day to replace them. I thus have salad at hand from early in November till garden supplies come in.

Neapolitan violets in abundance, in a little bed near the south door, protected by an oiled muslin frame, greet me with their odor whenever I step out. Last winter, however, there were very few, owing to the extreme cold.

Such are the amusements, as well as the troubles, of a lover of the beautiful, who only found himself at leisure after the age of fifty to indulge his tastes for a garden, and who in fifty experiments has had to learn for himself those particulars which books do not tell. It was only last year that I saw a retired "cit," planting his corn himself, without soaking it. "Why," said he, "the books say nothing of that!" Hence the necessity of periodicals like the Horticulturist, which it is pleasing to find is becoming exceedingly practical.