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Gardening.

GARDENING.

225

THIS is a delightful month for the garden. There is a great deal to enjoy, as well as a great deal to do. See that every thing is kept neat and clean. Cut down the weeds. Tie up your flowers to keep them from falling or breaking, and choose neat-looking sticks.

Put in kidney beans;-the scarlet runners are the most profitable sort, and will furnish you with a supply till the autumnal frosts come on. Put sticks, or (if they are against a wall) strings to them, as soon as they are a few inches above ground; they will twine round very neatly.

Asparagus will now be fit to cut. Take care, in cutting it, to put your knife straight down by the side of the shoot, or you will cut off the heads of some that are under ground. Transplant lettuces, and sow more seed:-and tie up, for a few days before you cut them, those that are ready for use. The old brown coss is perhaps the best lettuce of any; it stands the winter well; and, after being tied up, gets to be a beautiful colour. Sow small salading often. Sow spinach, if you want it: it must however be cut early, for that which is sown in summer runs fast to seed. Thin turnips, carrots, and parsnips, and keep them free from weeds. Let your onion bed also be thinned. Take out what you want for use, leaving the best in, to grow to a full size, about two or three inches distant. Leave those that have the best round bulbs, and pull up, for use, the thick necked ones. Sow some parsley, if not done already. Transplant cabbages, and savoys, choose a day, if you can, when the ground is wet. Sow peas, if you want more. Earth up those that want it, and stick them. Clean well between the rows. A Dutch hoe will cut down the weeds whilst they are young, and give you very

little trouble. One hot day will destroy those that are cut down, and very little raking will be required. -A weed is like a sin, it must be cut down while it young, or you will perhaps never get rid of it, for it will grow, and spread, and produce more.

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It is sometimes an object to find employment for little boys at school, and to teach them habits of industry, as well as merely to write and read. You have, at different times, spoken of schools where knitting has been tried with great success, and have shewn that shepherd-boys and others, have found, that to be able to knit their own stockings has not only furnished them with an agreeable employment, but a very profitable one too.

I send you a statement which I have just received from a friend who interests herself much in the education of children. Perhaps some of your readers may be glad to see this statement, though I know not whether they can turn it to any account or not; they however receive it as it came to me, and they must judge for themselves. My friend sent me a shirt, which she tells me was made at her village school, by a boy of twelve years old. The work was well done, the stitching, and button holes particularly. I was much pleased with examining it, and carried it to the girls of our National School to see; and all agreed that no girl could have done it better. My friend has a school which she has or

Wonders of Creation.

227

ganized, and I am sure the industrious habits inculcated do her much credit; she says the needle-work was adopted to give the boys employment during school hours, and that one little fellow of six years old hems handkerchiefs as well as any little girl of the same age. Some people think that such habits are likely to make the boys tender and girlish. I do not know, however, that there is any danger of this character doing much harm to English lads. It is of very great importance indeed to furnish children of both sexes with constant employment, so that they may never be idle, and that time may never hang on their hands; this idleness is the root of all evil. As my friend lives near the sea, and the boys, therefore, many of them, in after life, become fishermen, it is of very great advantage to them to have learnt the use of the needle.

Your constant reader,

Bury St. Edmund's.

M. C.

WONDERS OF CREATION.

How common it is for man to look at the works of Providence, and to look at them without any consideration of the wonderful manner in which they are made! If we look upwards, we see such immensity in the works of the Creator that they appear indeed to extend far beyond our powers of comprehension, -suns, moons, planets, seem to fill the space which we behold; and the telescope magnifies some of those into worlds, and brings to our view many others that we never saw before. How wonderful must be the power of Him who could make all these! And again, if we consider the lower orders of creation, we find there are creatures so small

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that we can scarcely see them; and, if we take a microscope and examine those little creatures we see that the very same wonderful contrivance is employed in forming them, as in forming the greatest of animals: numbers of creatures moreover, are thus brought to our view which were too small to be perceived by the naked eye. Take any one animal of any size, and the construction of its body is a perfect wonder." What a number of instruments," says Paley," are brought together, and often in how small a compass! An animal body is a cluster of contrivances. In a canary bird, for instance, and in the single ounce of matter which composes his body (but which seems to be all employed) we have instruments for eating, for digesting, for nourishment, for breathing, for running, for flying, for seeing, for hearing, for smelling, &c., each appropriate, each entirely different from all the rest." The same is true of animals much smaller than a Canary bird, but in such a bird we can at once perceive the contrivance, we can see that there are all these things. It is truly wonderful, and shews, in a beautiful manner, the merciful care of the Almighty Creator over all his works.

V.

QUESTIONS FROM THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

(See page 156, Vol. III.)

WHOSE SON was Edward the black prince?

Did he die before his father?

Who was then heir to the throne?

How old was Richard the IInd when his father died?

Who managed the affairs, of the kingdom whilst Richard was too young to govern?

Questions from the History of England. 229 Were large taxes required to pay the expences of the late king's wars?

What tax was considered very severe on the poor?

After what age were they required to pay this?
Who resisted it?

Who headed a mob and marched to London? Where did the king meet Wat Tyler and his followers?

How did the young king conduct himself on this occasion?

How did Tyler behave?

How did the Lord Mayor act?

What was the Lord Mayor's name?

When Wat Tyler was killed, were not his people very much enraged?

How were they pacified?

Did King Richard the IInd continue to act as well as he had begun?

What two noblemen had a quarrel?

How did the king act towards them?

Did one of them return?

Did he try to get the kingdom?

Who was this?

Whose son was he, and what relation was he to the king?

Had he any right to the throne during the king's life-time?

Would he have had any right to it, even if the king had been dead?

What family ought to have had the throne after the death of Richard?

What caused the disputes between the houses of York and Lancaster?

What was the end of Richard?

Where was he murdered?

In what

year was this?

V.

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