With the amateur this is a month of leisure in this department, so it allows time to consider what improvements and alterations can be made in the planting arrangements, and to prepare plants, seeds and bulbs for that purpose; any variety increased from cuttings, of which the stock is likely to be short, should be removed into a good position to get a good growth for cuttings; or cuttings of such plants might be placed in heat to root with a view to further increase; but for growers of moderate quantities of plants for summer flower garden decoration, there is no advantage in propagating before March, with the exception of the above, but all the plants for planting should be arranged before that time, with a list of all the plants intended to be planted; of course, mental notes would be taken of satisfactory, and also unsatisfactory results in last season's planting, and if any alterations in beds or borders was contemplated it should have been completed before the usual time of freezing up; not that we have been frozen up at present this winter, but this is the exception; it is always bad policy to leave any ground work alterations, such as turfing and leveling, to be done in the spring, for under any circumstances there is always hurry and bustle at that season, and time cannot be found for alterations, or they have to be done in a slovenly manner.

Make a list of any novelties, to be tried on a small scale at first, if it is only known by report; this should be specially attended to as regards European novelties, for many of the most desirable plants for summer flower gardening there are total failures here; it is waste of time to expect the same results here with Zonale and Nosegay Geraniums as are obtained in the English flower gardens, and no American gardener would model his planting by the flower beds at the crystal palace at Sydenham. But if we cannot obtain satisfactory results by copying our neighbors over the water, we can obtain much grander and in every way superior ones by planting those things only suited to the climate, and which in Europe they can only persuade to grow at all, by great trouble and expense in preparing the ground and plants beforehand; then often, after keeping beds empty until end of June, there will be a cold stormy time directly the plants are out, checking them for the short season they can at the best occupy the ground.