fluences are all beneficial; it usually makes people more industrious, and more amiable. Persuade a careless, indolent man to take an interest in his garden, and his reformation has begun. Let an idle woman honestly watch over her own flower-beds, and she will naturally become more active. There is always work to be done in a garden, some little job to be added to yesterday's task, without which it is incomplete; books may be closed with a mark where one left off, needlework may be thrown aside and resumed again; a sketch may be left half finished, a piece of music half practiced; even attention to household matters may relax in some measure for a while; but regularity and method are constantly required, are absolutely indispensable, to the well-being of a garden. The occupation itself is so engaging, that one commences readily, and the interest increases so naturally, that no great share of perseverance is needed to continue the employment, and thus labor becomes a pleasure, and the dangerous habit of idleness is checked. Of all faults of character, there is not one, perhaps, depending so entirely upon habit as indolence; and nowhere can one learn a lesson of order and diligence more prettily and more pleasantly than from a flower-garden.
But another common instance of the good effect of gardening may be mentioned:—it naturally inclines one to be open-handed. The bountiful returns which are bestowed, year after year, upon our feeble labors, shame us into liberality. Among all the misers who have lived on earth, probably few have been gardeners. Some cross-grained churl may set out, perhaps, with a determination to be niggardly with the fruits and flowers of his portion; but gradually his feelings soften, his views change, and before he has housed the fruits of many summers, he sees that these good
