THE 



GARDEH gOIBE. 



January, 1858. 



HAPPY NEW YEAR to you, and three cheers 

 for the " Eloral World," which now makes 

 its debut, and hopes to be useful in its infancy 

 and continue lusty to a green old age. It does 

 not appear with any flourish of trumpets or 

 roll of drums ; it does not ask for support on 

 the strength of great promises, but desires to be 

 judged for its merits, and accepted or rejected 

 according to its deserts. 



A very few words will tell its object, and 

 its title and the contents of the present number 

 the rest. It is projected to bind together a 

 rather large circle of gardening amateurs, who hitherto have had no literary 

 system of centralization. They want information on all sorts of subjects; 

 they want to ask questions, and to get civil answers ; and pretty often 

 they desire to have a whole code of some special department of plant 

 culture, condensed into the compass of a nut-shell. They are growers of 

 flowers, fruits, and vegetables, and many of them exhibitors in each of 

 those three departments ; and, to keep pace with the times, they need to 

 be informed, from month to month, what is going on in the " Floral 

 World," what new plants have been introduced from " far countries," 

 what new sorts have been raised at home, and, perhaps, more important 

 still, what, among the immense numbers of varieties we possess, deserve 

 to be retained, improved, preserved, or flung to Carlyle's limbo. 



These good folks, moreover, want to communicate to others of kindred 

 spirit, scraps of original knowledge derived from their own observation 

 and experience — to make suggestions of plans, and projects, and processes, 

 bearing on their favourite pursuit, either as to its actual improvement and 

 simplification, or the rendering cheap and come-at-able things that have 

 hitherto been beyond the reach of folks not blessed with fortunes. Then, 

 in return for such evidence of good fellowship, they would sometimes 

 want a hint, or an instruction, or an opinion, on some point that might 



NO. I. VOL. I. B 



