PREFACE. 



I HAVE been induced to compile this little work from hearing many 

 of my companions regret that no single book contained a sufficiently 

 condensed and general account of the business of a Flower Garden. 

 " We require," they said, "a work in a small compass, which will 

 enable us to become our own gardener : we wish to know how to 

 set about every thing ourselves, without expense, without being del- 

 uged with Latin words and technical terms, and without being 

 obliged to pick our way through multiplied publications, redolent 

 of descriptions, and not always particularly lucid. We require a 

 practical work, telling us of useful flowers, simple modes of rearing 

 them, simply expressed, and free from lists of plants and roots which 

 require expensive methods of preservation. Some of us have gar- 

 dens, but we cannot afford a gardener: we like flowers, but we 

 cannot attempt to take more than common pains to raise them. 

 We require to know the hardiest flowers, and to comprehend the 

 general business of the garden, undisturbed by fear of failure, 

 and at the most economical scale of expense. Wlio will write us 

 such a book?" 



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