_Ivy Leaves_.--Common ivy is tolerably plentiful nearly everywhere, but it is not common to find a good distinct series of its many varieties even in the best gardens. Of all the different forms of ivy, I think the large-leaved golden one of the best; certainly the best of the variegated kinds. Raegner's variety is also very bold, its great glossy, heart-shaped leaves most effective. Algeriensis is another fine-leaved kind, the form dentata producing foliage even still larger when well grown. For making low evergreen edgings on the turf, for carpeting banks, the covering of bare walls and the old tree stumps, we have no other evergreen shrub so fresh and variable, or so easily cultivated as are these forms of the ivy green. Perhaps one reason why the finer kinds of ivy are comparatively uncommon is the fact that a strong prejudice exists against ivy in many minds. It is an erroneous notion that ivy injures buildings against the walls of which it is planted; it never injures a good wall, nor a sound house, but on the contrary, hides and softens the stony bareness of the one and adds beauty and freshness to the other.--_The Garden_. [Illustration: VARIOUS FORMS OF IVY. Finger-leaved Ivy (H. Itata). Irish Ivy (H. canariensis). Rira's foot Ivy (H. pedata).] * * * * * PROPAGATING ROSES. In an article on this subject an English horticultural journal describes the method pursued by a London florist. After stating that out of a case containing 310 cuttings only five failed to root, the article proceeds: The case or box is made of common rough deal boards. It is five feet six inches long and one foot in depth. Within half an inch of the top a groove is cut inside the box, into which the glass is slid, after the manner of a sliding box lid. In the end of the third week in July the box was placed in the kitchen garden under the shadow of a high north wall; it was then about half filled with good turfy loam, to which had been added a little leaf mould and a good sprinkling of sharp sand. The soil was then pressed down very firmly (the box being nearly half full when pressed), and then thoroughly well soaked with rain water, and allowed to stay uncovered until the next day. The next day good stout cuttings were taken of all the roses, both tea and hybrid perpetual, which it was desired to add to the stock. They were then inserted closely and firmly in the soil, just over the bottom leaf, the glasses were slipped on and puttied down; the grooves in which the glass slid, and even the joints in the glass, being filled with putty, so as to exclude the air. The whole thing completed, nothing more remained to be done but to leave the box in its cool, shady nook for five or six weeks, when the growing points of the free starting kinds gave notice that the glasses might be removed, a bit at a time, with safety. Nothing could be more simple, or demand less skill, and the operation may be carried out