WE were much struck on reading recently some remarks attributed to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. It is well known that he has been a hard student, a busy politician, and a voluminous writer, and it has excited the surprise of many how he has found time for all these things. On being asked, he replied, in substance, that it was by "not doing too much." His labors have all been methodized; and thus, without overtasking himself either mentally or physically, he has accomplished amount of labor which to many it has seemed impossible to crowd into an ordinary lifetime. This "not doing too much nmay be applied to all the undertakings of life, and it has a special application to those engaged in Horticultural pursuits, whether professionally or as mere amateurs. A large proportion of the failures to accomplish purposed ends may be attributed to an inordinate desire to do too much. However well plans may be laid out, and however much enthusiasm may be felt in their accomplishment, nothing satisfactory will ever be done without a due regard to "method," and without sufficient force to make "methodn effective. ' In all great plans or undertakings, matters foreign to the object in view, and all minor matters whatever, must be made subordinate to the one great idea embodied in such undertaking.

In some of the pursuits of life this is well understood, and a greater measure of success would crown our efforts if it were understood in all; and especially would this be the case were the principle soundly applied to the operations of the Horticulturist and Landscape Gardener. We have known cases where improvements have been "doing n for years, but where nothing effective or satisfactory has ever been "done;" not, certainly, for want of means, for these have been abundant, but from want of "method;" there has been no leading idea apparent; no one thing seems to have been made subordinate to another, and consequently the right thing has not been done at the right time; to use a homely phrase, there have been " too many irons in the fire." All this must necessarily lead to disappointment and vexation, and an unwarranted waste of means, and it renders utterly futile all hope of ever impressing upon a landscape a beauty of purpose or unity of design. We love to see a purpose imbodied in everything, and we love to see such purpose carried out with a due regard to the fitness of surrounding objects, but we do not believe either of these desirable ends can be accomplished without combining good taste in design with a rigorous method in execution.

It is the purpose manifested in the judicious use of the material at our command which gives character to all rural embellishment. This may not always demand the highest appreciation of aesthetics, but some sense of the beauty and fitness of things in their relations to surrounding objects is indispensable to give a pleasing expression to the disposition that is to be made of them. Now just here we might preach a sermon, but for the present we only designed dropping a few hints, to impress upon the reader the fact, that he will accomplish most by " not doing too much".