The following experiment was noted in the Garden Magazine: A soil was prepared as follows: One-eighth stable manure, one-eighth leaf mold, one-quarter garden soil (heavy), one-half sifted coal ashes. Plants grown in this soil surpassed those grown in the garden soil next to them. Coal ashes would not be advised for a light soil. * * * * * Watch this page for announcement of Garden Flower Society meetings. January 20th, Public Library, Minneapolis, Tenth and Hennepin, Directors' Room, 2:30 p.m. SUBJECTS: Hotbeds, coldframes, management and care of the young plants, Mr. Frank H. Gibbs. The Minnesota Cypripediums. Can they be successfully cultivated? Miss Clara Leavitt. Five-minute talks on "The Best Things of 1915." Members are urged to bring their friends to this meeting. No one who contemplates having a garden this year can afford to miss it. Let us be generous and share our good programs with as many as possible. Each member is host or hostess for that day. SECRETARY'S CORNER ANNUAL MEETING WISCONSIN STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCY.--This meeting is to be held at Madison, Wis., on January 5-7. Mr. Chas. Haralson, superintendent of our State Fruit-Breeding Farm, is to represent this society at that meeting. We may look for an interesting report from him in the February issue of our monthly. IS YOUR ANNUAL FEE PAID?--If not, won't you please send it in promptly, remitting by a $1.00 bill, which is a safe medium of payment, instead of using check unless you draw on a bank in one of the larger cities of the state. Checks on country banks, as a rule, can only be collected here by a payment of ten cents, which the society can ill afford to pay for so many members. ANNUAL MEETING S.D. HORT. SOCY.--The annual gathering of this sister association will be held in Huron, S.D., January 18-20. Quite a good many of our members live so near the state line that they may find it convenient to attend this meeting, which will certainly be a profitable one. Prof. N. E. Hansen is secretary. Mr. Wm. Pfaender, Jr., of New Ulm, is to be the representative of this society at the South Dakota meeting. ANNUAL MEETING SOUTHERN MINNESOTA HORT. SOCY.--This very wide-awake auxiliary of the state society will hold its annual meeting in Austin, January 19th and 20th next. The program of the meeting is not yet at hand, but you may be sure that it will be an interesting and practical one. If the reader is living anywhere within convenient range of Austin by all means attend this meeting and get inspiration and help for the work of another season.