THE FLOWER GARDEN. ENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND DIRECTIONS. -June is usually the driest of all the months in the year. It is not, however, the warmest ; and, at the beginning, the weather is often somewhat cold, especially during the night. By the end of the month the heat of the weather is generally pretty uniform. The garden should now begin to exhibit a pretty appearance, as the seeds sown last month will have made considerable progress in growth, and the perennials will be also showing for flower. Every part of the garden should be now in excellent order; the lawns should be regularly mown and rolled, the paths perfectly clean and sinooth, and all weeds removed. BEDDING-OUT PLANTS, &c.-If not already put in the borders, there should now be bedded out, without the least delay, geraniums, fuchsias, verbenas, heliotropes, calceolarias, eupheas, and other similar plants. All plants which are sufficiently tall to require it should be neatly supported by stakes, and tied up, so as to improve their appearance and prevent their being broken. Bulbs, such as hyacinths and eroenses, whose flowering is past and leaves are becoming faded, should be cleared away. All flowering plants past their beauty should be removed, except in such cases where it is absolutely necessary to preserve them in the ground for the sake of the seed. Cut away all straggling growths and unrequired suckers. Roses, which are so liable to be destroyed by green-fly and other insects, should be carefully syringed with tobacco-water; and liquid manure should also be plentifully administered, especially to standard roses. Earwigs are very troublesome now, and a ready means of entrapping them is to place a flower-pot or lobster-claw at the top of a stick, and into these the insects will invariably mount, and can then be easily destroyed. THE KITCHEN GARDEN. If the ground be dry, watering must be done at evening, or early in the morning, as freshlyplanted crops require a great deal of attention in this way. Potatoes, cabbages, and peas should be well weeded, thinned, and hoed. Broccoli, celery, endive, leeks, savoys, and spinach should be planted out; and peas and scarlet-runners staked. The parasitical insects infesting the spinach, beans, and cabbages, should be well looked after, and the affected parts removed. A row of Brussels sprouts may now be planted, as they will then conveniently come into use early in the autumn. Mode.-Wash the salad, thoroughly dry it by shaking in a cloth, cut up the lettuces and endive, pour the dressing on them, and lightly throw in the small salad. Mix all well together, with the pickings from the body of the lobster; pick the meat from the shell, cut it up into nice square pieces, put half in the salad, the other half reserve for garnishing. Separate the yolks from the whites of the 2 boiled eggs, chop the whites very fine, and rub the yolks through a sieve, and, afterwards, the coral from the inside of the lobster. Arrange the salad lightly on a glass dish, and garnish-first with a row of sliced cucumber, then with the pieces of lobster; the yolks and whites of the eggs, coral, and beetroot placed alternately, and arranged in small, separate bunches, so that the colours contrast nicely. Note.-A few crayfish make a pretty garnishing to lobster salad. Average cost, 3s. 6d. Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons. Salmon Cutlets. INGREDIENTS. A few slices of salmon, pepper and salt to taste, a sheet of buttered paper. Mode. Cut the slices one inch thick, and season them with pepper and salt; butter a sheet of white paper, lay each slice on a separate piece, with its ends twisted; broil gently over a clear fire, and serve with anchovy or caper-sauce. When higher seasoning is required, add a few chopped herbs and a little spice. Time.-5 to 10 minutes. Average cost, 1s. 3d. per lb. CherishWOMANS CONVERSAZIONE Lent fast was called by the Latins Quadragesima; but whether on account of its being originally a fast of forty days or only forty hours, has been much disputed among the learned. About three centuries ago, in a small village among the Apennines, the priest was so ignorant that, not being himself aware of the annual feasts, he never announced them to his congregation. Having, one day, visited a distant town, he saw the priests preparing their branches of olive and palm for next day, and found he had forgotten to announce Lent to his flock. Returning eight days afterwards, he caused the palm-branches to be gathered, and, addressing his congregation, said, "To-morrow, my friends, is Palm Sunday. Easter will take place next week; we shall fast during this week only, for Lent has come later this year, in consequence of the cold weather and bad roads." CLARA WHITEBOY.-We can quite enter into your horror of the system of slavery, the "peculiar institution" of our cousins across the Atlantic; but there is something to be said for the Southeners, notwithstanding, but which we are not going to bore you with here. One of the most stinging sarcasms ever hurled against the United States was written by Thomas Campbell, not many years since, in reference to their banner, which displays "Stars and Stripes" United States, your banner wears Reminds us of your shame. Your standard's constellation types But what's the meaning of the stripes? Surely your name, Miss Whiteboy, must be assumed. MRS. JAMES PICKWORTH.-You complain of our English hotels, and don't like English travelling. Well, the hotels are not good-that is, they might easily be much better-although we do know an inn or two in the country where adulteration is not altogether the watchword, and the charges are fairly within the mark. You like the Continental hotels better, you say. Well, there is certainly good administration at the Louvre, in Paris, and we had more than one most excellent petit souper at the Guldenstern, at Bonn, on the Rhine, at whose University the present Prince Consort was educated. Possibly, however, you may not have been beyond the route usually "done" by tourists; and here the hotel-keepers prepare for their best customers, the proud Islanders, with all their taste and elegancy. But go further; pass into the far-off towns but seldom visited except by some adventurous and eccentric Briton, then will you write to your friend a letter something in the frame of mind in which Horace Walpole found himself when writing, more than a hundred years since, to Sir Horace Mann. His letter is dated Newmarket, 1743. He says, "I am writing to you in an inn on the road to London. What a paradise should I have thought this when I was in the Italian inns!-in a wide barn, with four ample windows, which had nothing more like glass than shutters and iron bars! No tester to the bed, and the saddles and portmanteaus heaped on me to keep off the cold. What a paradise did I think the inn at Dover when I came back! and what magnificence were twopenny prints, salt Icellars, and boxes to hold the knives! but the summum bonum was small-beer and the newspaper. I bless'd my stars, and call'd it luxury." There is the slightest possible suspicion in our minds that "a trip on the Continent" is one of the shams of the day, and that many a pater and materfamilias would, by keeping within the limits of the United Kingdom, enjoy themselves better, spend less money, and add something to the usually very small amount of knowledge they possess of British geography, topography, manners and customs, beyond a circle of some ten miles from their own suburban villa. Believe us, that here in the valleys of Eng. land, the mountains of Wales, the lochs of Scotland, and the lakes of Ireland, there are a few pretty bits of scenery" not unworthy the eye of the modern knight and lady. SNOWDROP.-Yes, lotteries were very much in vogue at the latter end of the last and the beginning of this century. The reigning London fashion amongst the quality in 1780, says a writer of that period, was to go, after the opera, to the lottery offices, where their ladyships would bet with the keepers. You chose any number you pleased; if it didn't come up next day, you paid five guineas; if it did, you received forty, or in proportion to the age of the tirage (drawing). The Duchess of Devonshire, in one day, won nine hundred pounds. A General Smith, as the luckiest individual, was of the most select parties, and chose the numbers for the fair dowagers. Sometimes we hear people speaking of the far greater virtues which were practised in England when our grandfathers and grandmothers were living! the ADELAIDE POE TREE.-You admire, beyond all other poets, Byron. We do not; and we think his reputation will not stand the test of the criticism of this and future ages; but, as you say, one of the excusable weaknesses of Byron was his pride in his Norman ancestry-the first of his forefathers established in England, Ralph de Buron, having come over with the Conqueror. This Ralph held several manors in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire, and the lordship of Clayton as well. The third Lord Byron married one of a name strangely connected with the fortunes of the family-Elizabeth Chaworth, daughter of John, Viscount Chaworth. William, the fifth Lord, was surnamed "Wicked," and lived to fall prostrate before that shrine falsely called by moral eowards "Honour." Being at a convivial meeting of the Nottinghamshire Club, held in Pall Mall, on the 26th of Janu. ary, 1765, he had some words with his friend and neighbour, Mr. Chaworth, of Annesley, as to whether Sir Charles Sedley, on his estates of Nuttall and Bulwell, or he (Lord Byron), on his estate of Newstead, had the greater quantity of game. Heated with wine, the disputants encountered on the stair. What passed, or who was the challenger, is not known, but they requested a waiter to show them to an empty room, which he did, leaving a small lighted candle on the table. The bell was soon after rung, and, on the waiter, or tavern-keeper, and some of the dinner-friends, entering the room, they found Mr. Chaworth mor tally wounded-his opponent's sword having passed into his body, and gone, as he expressed it, deep through his back. Lord Byron's left arm was round Mr. Chaworth, and Mr. Chaworth's right arm round Lord Byron's neck and on his shoulders. The folly of the moment had passed into the eternal crime. The shades were gathering round. To the one-Death; the other-Remorse. Chaworth, in his expiring agony, forgave his friend, who was tried by his Peers on the 13th of February following, and found guilty of manslaughter; whereupon he claimed the benefit of the statute of Edward VI., which was allowed, and he was discharged on paying his fees. He retired to Newstead, and there lived a life of gloomy misan thropy. Mr. |