How beautiful and pleasant are the thoughts of the past, when the latter has been properly directed in our walks and labors through life. The reminiscences of good invariably yield consolation, and thus we live, so to speak, not in the present, but in the past and future. So it is, Mr. Editor, with the good horticulturist; his life, his existence and aspirations, seem also to be wrapped up in the past and future. What he has well done gives him consolation, and that which he intends to do carries him and his toils on cheerfully. He sometimes meets with downfalls, and things look dark and dreary, but he also knows that "Spring reblooms, though winters blight, And day succeeds the longest night'

It has been particularly interesting to me to witness the manifest spirit of determination that exists among amateurs to develop that which is considered perfection in their vegetables, fruits, and flowers. The Horticultural Exhibitions around the city of New York this season have been a credit to all interested in them. That prosperous and thriving institution at Brooklyn never looked so gay with its flowers, and tempting with its fruits, as in September last. The hard and soft-wooded plants were the products of good plantsmen, and to him who glories in the sight of a good orchid, those brought from Jersey City by C. Vanvoorst, Esq., were just the varieties to create wonder and admiration, and would have been equally meritorious had they been placed on a table at Chiswick or Regent's Park. But, thanks to the indefatigable exertions of the worthy president of this society, J. W. Degrauw, Esq., for what it now is - and I would there were more such gentlemen. Then your western prairies would bloom with roses of deeper hues - a knowledge of fruits and flowers would be taught in their schools, and gardens spring into existence filled with luscious fruits.

All should take an interest in Horticulture, and Agriculture too, for these exhibitions are to society the same as the press is to the world - a principle of life.;

We remember standing near two gentlemen at the exhibition in Brooklyn last June, who were discussing the merits of some Pelargoniums there for competition. One remarked that he could not succeed in flowering them as his neighbor Mr. C. did. "I think I know where you miss it," replied the other. "Aha!" "Yes; and if you think it won't tax your patience too much just now, I will begin at the beginning and tell you, and then perhaps we shall be better understood.

"First, we shall suppose you to have some old plants on hand in the spring of the year, say March; we then make a selection of the cuttings, and in doing so select young, healthy, short-jointed wood, take the leading points four to five joints or eyes long, pot each cutting in a small or thumb pot, and use very sandy loam, and plunge them in a moderate bottom heat, and keep close. With due attention to watering, etc, two weeks will root them. Then repot them into a four or five-inch pot, and nip out the point of the young plant, which will induce it to burst the eyes at the axil of the leaves to form the first branches of the plant. The next part of the. business is to understand that we must not make a stove plant of the Pelargonium. Give them plenty of air and light; a shelf near the glass roof is a good situation. The young plant is now growing pretty freely, and we allow the young shoots to grow out and over the edge of this four or five-inch pot, and as they grow we use small pegs and peg the young branches or shoots down flat on the surface of the pot, and divided equally. This arrangement should be properly attended to, and is the foundation or what is to be a specimen plant.

As soon as the young shoots have got over the edge of the pot, nip out their points, and repot into a size two or three times larger; but remember not to allow the young shoots to get ten or twelve inches long before you nip out the points, or the plants will forget that they are intended for specimens, and also omit to burst the proper or base eyes; and when you have finished the potting process, there will be most likely a vacancy in the centre of your plant. You understand me, sir; that if the young shoots are allowed to grow and make three or four eyes or leaves in length, you must make them burst all the eyes they make, for the simple reason that you want the branches. Now, by following this process of potting, stopping, and pegging down, from the month of March up to September, you can grow the plant to almost any size you think proper; but we think a twelve-inch pot is large enough, and into that pot it should not go after September, if you expect to thoroughly flower it the next season.

The object in potting at this period simply is, that the plant may get its pot full of roots - pot-bound, as the gardeners call it - and when pot-bound, the plant cannot grow so fast, consequently ripens well all the wood or branches it has made, and when we get well-ripened wood - you know what the result is - plenty of good fruit. Well, sir, so it is with flowers. Ripen the wood well, and get them pot-bound, and they must then flower or die.

"By this process of growing the Pelargonium, no sticks are required. Through the winter the plants should be near the glass. Give as much air as convenient, and the state of the atmosphere will allow, and keep them comparatively dry; in fact, we have often seen them so dry that the foliage would indicate the want of water, and without injury. In reference to the compost after the first potting, they seem to flourish in strong sandy loam, made rich with well decomposed cow manure. The pots should be thoroughly drained. When the month of April comes, then let the plants grow; give plenty of water, and let it be good strong manure water, and you will see the color of the foliage change to dark green with a texture worth looking at, and heads of bloom rising like the morning sun to expand into noonday brilliancy. Now in closing these remarks, permit me say, if you desire to have good healthy plants - dwarf and stocky - bloomed without a shower of sticks, and profusely flowered, you must not allow your young plants to remain pot-bound and dried up for weeks together in a three-inch pot, smothered and eaten up with green fly, but must begin at the beginning to promote and carry completely through the whole growth without check. Grow no green fly. Give plenty of air. No coddling up.

No ice-water, and last, though not least, no potting in the spring, and then your Pelargoniums will flower to your heart's content, and the admiration of all who behold them.

" Come, sir, I see I am getting tiresome; we will go over to that large table and look at those delicious pears from Ellwanger & Barry, grown on dwarfs, that some folks say won't never do".