INTRODUCTION. XlX 



disposable means, space, and attention, to the culture of 

 the flowers of a season, will have the effect of decreasing 

 the amount of enjoyment obtainable at other seasons 

 correspondingly. This is felt in a dreary way, and to an 

 oppressive extent, by many who devote the greater part 

 of their resources to the culture of summer and autumn 

 flowers. They are accustomed to a feast of flowers for 

 a brief period, at a season when nature herself, anywhere 

 beyond the garden boundary, is replete with varied floral 

 attractions — the season of all seasons, if any there be, 

 when the flower-garden may conveniently be dispensed 

 with. And when nature fails to lure us to her haunts, 

 when we begin to value most highly the comforts of home 

 and its environs, then our flower-gardens begin to fail to 

 yield pleasure ; and two long seasons, winter and spring, 

 the latter with all its bright loveliness and sweetness in 

 flowers greatly surpassing in power to interest and yield 

 enjoyment the best displays we can produce, even in 

 summer and autumn, must come and go before the 

 fashion we have too generally adopted can again safely 

 appear in the garden. The only remedy for the short- 

 comings entailed by the too exclusive use of summer and 

 autumn flowers of a constitution fitted only to endure our 

 climate at those seasons, is in the adoption of the hardier 

 subjects of all seasons. I have already alluded to the 

 extent and variety of these ; and as the principal object 

 of this work is to make the hardy perennial flowers of all 

 seasons more familiar and popular in all classes of gardens, 

 it may somewhat serve this purpose if I devote some 

 portion of the space at my disposal here to a brief consi- 

 deration of their capabilities for ornamental gardening, 

 and for enlarging the enjoyments derivable from flower- 



b 



