July 15, 1875. ) JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTl'AGE GARDENER. 



TO OUE READERS, 



When Charles Knight was told of an intended journal, he advised that it should contain " things 

 new and old;" and one of his concluding observations was, "If you find it is useful, that will be 

 almost as pleasing as its being profitable." Experience has confirmed to us the truth of that 

 veteran publisher's utterances. We have sought successfully for the best of things new and old, 

 and no 'pleasanter narrative has reached us than that which told of a farm labourer, whose 

 library, besides his bible, prayer and hymn books, comprised no more than two of our old 

 volumes. His garden was always mentioned by the village parson as a model, and that parson 

 glowed with pleasure as he told how the labourer acknowledged that his flower beds were from 

 Donald Beaton's teachings, his roof Vine was prolific from Robert Fish's, and his kitchen garden 

 productive from James Barnes's. Those teachings were in the two old volumes of our Journal ; but 

 in that cottage our newer name was not admitted, for, as its tenant said, " I calls ii ' The Cott;ige 

 Gardener ' — the name comes more home." Gladdened are we by such testimony to our useful- 

 ness, but further gladdened are we by the knowledge that we are useful to the amateur and the 

 gardener; for them, for all who delight in home surroundings, we obtain the best of "things new 

 and old" — we say emphatically " the best," because they are rendered to us by those known to bo 

 well skilled. 



We have no new thing to say in conclusion, for it is an old thing for us to have to thank our 

 helpmates and our readers for enabling us still to say that we rejoice in being 



THE EDITOES. 



