THE 



CASDEn ©ySBE. 



Decembee, 1863. 



^J'F any of our readers wish to know how to make a fortune, 

 '^ without being mere money-grubbers — how to pursue busi- 



,,. ness without extinguishing every genial sentiment, or 

 ^C becoming sordid in calculations of gain and loss— we 

 » advise them to engage in editing a horticultural periodical. 

 It is the best fun ever invented, for all the other realities 

 of life arc decked out in romantic habiliments, and an editor 

 goes through life decked with a kind of " delirium trimmings," 

 while he is at the same time as prosaic an individual as the aged 

 dame who obtains her bread by turning a mangle. A periodical 

 is only another kind of shop whereat there is something to be 

 sold— say at the figure of fourpcnce— yet all the customers come 

 with the smiles of friends ; and while you take their money, and 

 order a new carriage, and commission Mr. Equestris to buy a 

 stud of thorough-bred greys, you arc in the attitude of a favourite at an 

 evening party, and all you say and do is intended to set other people 

 saying and doing, so that out of the playful tattle there may be eliminated 

 as much real wisdom as will suffice to give excuse next day to speak of 

 the affair as " a feast of reason and a flow of soul." This 1'loral 

 World is nothing more nor less than a commercial commodity ; those 

 who don't like it don't buy it— those who do like it pay for it ; and_ there 

 is an end to the matter as to the business of the shop. Yet the chink of 

 the money is music to both parties, and we shame all the rest of the 

 ■world's buyers and sellers by shaking hands with each other, and taking 

 mutual interest in each other's affairs. It is said— and it is not for us to 

 gainsay it— that the Floral World is the best book ever yet produced 

 for people who really love gardening, and wish to pursue it as a recrea- 

 tion out of which may be "extracted both commercial and intellectual 

 profit ; and there is a very general desire to put on our unworthy heads a 

 wreath of laurel, in token of appreciation of our labours by thousands and 

 thousands of readers. There can be no doubt this is a very admirable 

 publication. While we have it to sell, we must follow the good old 

 rule of crying up our own wares, even if we abstain from that other rule 

 of crying down other people's. But our great modesty compels us to 



VOL. VI. — NO. XII. '^ 



