March cut off the withered old leaves, and rake the surface with a wooden rake. If any blossoms appear, cut them away, and do not suffer the plantation to have any fruit in the first year. Prepare a second bed in the same way, and treat it in every respect as the first was treated. Permit that bed to bear a full crop in the second year, and the product will demonstrate the value of this mode of proceeding. A third bed will complete the succession, and at the same time the second will come into bearing. The first bed may then be destroyed, and replanted, after deep digging and manuring. Lay mowings of grass among the plants that bear fruit, to preserve the trusses from being splashed. The directions above given comprise the routine of a mode of planting which is calculated to produce the best fruit in abundance; and the amateur gardener would do well to try it carefully. Our objection to long angle rows is that they occupy much room, and the fruit is rarely, if ever, preserved from dirt and mutilation. A plot formed as directed takes up little space, and is renewed without inconvenience. Farmer's Magazine.

THE SUNFLOWER.

THE value of this plant, which is easily cultivated, and ornamental to the garden, is scarcely known in most parts of the kingdom. The seeds form a most excelÎent and convenient food for poultry; and it is only necessary to cut off the heads of the plant when ripe, tie them in bunches, and hang them up in a dry situation, to be used as wanted. They not only fatten every kind of poultry, but greatly increase the quantity of eggs they lay. When cultivated to a considerable extent, they are also capital food for sheep and pigs, and for pheasants. The leaves, when dried, form a good powder for cattle; the dry stalks burn well, and form an abundance of alkali, and when in bloom, the flower is most attractive to bees.-Chambers' Edinburgh Journal,

TEA.

Economy in Tea.-As much carbonate of soda (to be had at the chemist's ) as will lie on a fourpenny piece, put into the teapot with two teaspoonfulls of tea, and the usual quantity of water, will make it as strong as three teaspoonfuls without it.

Test of pure Tea.-Make your tea in a large tea-pot, then pour off the first filling up of water, and, instead of replenishing the tea-pot for a second cup, turn out the leaves on a plate. If they are real tea, they will retain the usual colour; but if they are sloe, or ash, or any other such production, the false colouring matter will have been carried off in the water, and the leaves will remain quite black.-Literary Chronicle.

TEMPER.

BOTH the good-tempered and the ill-tempered may find their advantage in committing to memory the following precepts of holy writ-

"The discretion of a man deferreth his anger, and it is his glory to pass by a transgression."

"He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly."

"He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding; but he that is of a hasty spirit exalteth folly."

"A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger."

"He that hath no rule over his own spirit, is like a city broken down, and without walls."

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He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty: and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city." "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

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'Let the same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus."

"Those that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please themselves. Let every

one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.

"Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another: if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”—The Family Book.

THATCHING.

THE Somersetshire mode, with unbruised straw, provincially termed reed, instead of bruised straw with the ears on it, is preferable to all other. It lasts nearly as long again as common straw, and does not tempt birds and vermin with corn remaining in imperfectly thrashed straw, to make holes in the thatch. A sheaf of wheat is placed in a reed press, made of two pieces of wood, ten feet long, and put on a stool, and having women to lay hold of the ears of corn, who draw out the straw, and cut off the caps, and then bind up the sheaf for use. this process women are usefully employed in wet weather, and the corn is more easily thrashed in short ears than in the long straw.

A THOUGHT ON PRAYER.

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"OUR prayers should always be mixed with thanksgivings. We receive much, we enjoy much, and we deserve nothing: truly then it befits us, when we ask for new mercies, to acknowledge past ones; when we ask for new comforts, to praise a covenant God for past bestowments. Oh how much has the poorest, the meanest, to be thankful for! and how much more still they whose lives are crowned with loving-kindness and mercy!”

A THOUGHT ON REPENTANCE.

Ir is very becoming in us, who inhabit a world of pollution, and have, as expressed in scripture, "evil hearts of unbelief," in departing from God to seek the

Spirit of God for repentance. Repentance, says an author, originates in conviction of sin, is manifested by a concern of the mind which nothing can divert, and is renewed and deepened by the word of God, which penetrates the heart, and discovers hidden depths of vanity and sin which no words are sufficient to describe. True repentance is deep, universal, and not partial, as was the repentance of Judas; it is productive, and not barren; it must be abiding, and not transient.

THE COMPLAINT OF TIME.

I COMPLAIN that, as a parent, I have given you many opportunities of speaking a word in season to your family and children, but you have neglected to seize the moment: the time has flown away, and those opportunities of usefulness are lost for ever. I complain that I have given you, as a professed Christian, many golden opportunities of improvement in the closet, in the sanctuary, and in the world,-but you have been slothful, and remiss, or busied yourself with earthly cares, and now you can only mourn over past neglect. Improve your present moments as they pass, for if you now tremble at the lapse of time, what will be your feelings in the future, when I shall have finished my course,―rest from my weary round,-and no longer make any division of eternity into time, of years into months, of months into weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. I shall not then warn of time or eternity: these monitions and warnings are merciful in this life; but remember that the last sand of your hour-glass will soon have run its course, and then eternity, with all its boundless prospects, will open before you.

TOBACCO.

WHEN the fashion was so strong in England that James I. could get no one to preach against it, his own royal hand took the pen and wrote a treatise, which he denominates "A Counterblast to Tobacco." The strength

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of his princely antidote may be gathered from the follow ing closing paragraph of his royal counterblast. "It is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.”

Experienced people tell us that the habit of using tobacco in any shape, will after a time render you emaciated and consumptive, your spirits low and moody, your throat dry and demanding stimulating drinks, your person filthy, and your habits those of a swine.

TRUE RELIGION.

THE Christian knows that the only way to be happy is to be holy and it is a libel upon religion to say that there is no pleasure in it.

VACCINATION.

Ir is grievous to see that small-pox still continues its destruction in many parts of the country; and this is generally found to be where vaccination has been neglected. Before the discovery of vaccination, the small-pox generally prevailed in our parishes about once in every three years. But so great has been the change that for twenty years together, many parishes have had no small-pox; and in some it appears to have been altogether put an end to. This is proof enough of the power of vaccination. But there has been one bad effect arising from this; for people, seeming to have forgotten their dread of small-pox, have taken no trouble about the matter, and have neglected to use the means by which they might hope to be secured. Thus, in some parishes, there has been little or no vaccination for many years; and then, when some person brings the small-pox into the parish, the greater number of people are ready to take it: those who have not been vaccinated are pretty sure to take it: and thus we see that a whole parish may be brought to suffer by this dreadful disease, when it might have been kept away, if all the people had been vacciated when they were young. Some people still say that