Letter-writing is generally complained of as a bore, or ridiculed as a school-girl weakness, yet it is the medium of much pleasure and happiness, and, as such, should always be a favorite occupation with our sex especially, who have ever been distinguished as excelling in the art. If it is a bore to send kindly messages, to interchange lively criticism upon popular music or reading, to record excellent or earnest thoughts, the writer can have very little to say, and that little might as well be left altogether, in nine cases out of ten. The tone of such a correspondent would be frivolous, trifling, gossiping, and no doubt the shafts of mischief, intended or careless, wing her words. We commend to such a lady the laconic and affectionate epistle of the French wife to her husband, if so be she must needs write at all: "Je vous écris parceque je n'ai rien à faire; je finis parceque je n'ai rien à dire. I write to you because I have nothing to do; I finish because I have nothing to say." This would, at least, be common honesty, and a harmless, if not satisfactory communication.
Letter-writing, in its happiest aspect, is, as we have said, a pleasant interchange of thought, and may be made the medium of usefulness and happiness. If every idle word we speak bears witness against us, every thoughtless sentence written must have double weight. Spirited narratives of passing events, a summer day's tour, even of domestic incidents, clever criticisms, or suggestions, hearty good wishes, or the offering of sincere sympathy, these can never offend charity or good taste; but to write because it is expected of us is a tiresome hypocrisy no one should feel bound to keep up, out of which mischief to ourselves or others is almost sure to arise.
A New Method for Hastening the Blowing of Bulbs.—The following liquid has been used with great advantage for this purpose: Sulphate or nitrate of ammonia, four ounces; nitrate of potash, two ounces; sugar, one ounce; hot water, one pint; dissolve and keep it in a well-corked bottle. For use, put eight or ten drops of this liquid into the water of a hyacinth glass, or jar, for bulbous-rooted plants, changing the water every ten or twelve days. For flowering plants in pots, a few drops must be added to the water employed to moisten them. Rain-water is preferable for this purpose.
City Gardens.—In winter, city gardens have generally a very gloomy appearance. The greenhouse plants, which, during summer, made a brilliant show in the open ground, have been blackened by frost, and present that appearance of ruined beauty which it is always so painful to contemplate. In many gardens, the pelargoniums (geraniums) and other greenhouse plants, which have stood out during the summer in the open ground, are suffered to remain till they are quite killed by the frost, and are then taken up and thrown on the waste heap to rot with the dead leaves, mowings of grass, and other vegetable refuse, in order that, in due time, they may form vegetable mould for other plants to grow in; but, in some cases, it is desirable to preserve the old plants of the scarlet geraniums during the winter, in order to procure a finer display of flowers early in the following season. When this is the case, the plants are taken up, and the earth being shaken from their roots, they are laid in a dry, shady, airy place, generally in the back shed of the greenhouse; or hung up with their heads downwards for a week or ten days. Each plant should afterwards be carefully examined, and cleansed from all decaying matter, and the branches pruned back to about four or five buds or eyes, the roots being shortened accordingly; after which the plants should be either potted in small pots, or laid in rows in a cellar with their roots covered with dry sand. Where the cellar is not sufficiently dry, they may be put into a spare room, passage, or shed, where the frost cannot penetrate, and where they are kept till spring.
At this season, if the frost will permit, the beds in city gardens may be dug over, that the earth may be ameliorated by the influence of the air.
The pleasant old fashion of centre-table work has been revived, except in New York City, perhaps, where, save in some secluded circles, every one seems bent on disproving the preacher's proposition: "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."