IO Principles of Plant Culture. 
The art of doing any kind of work is best learned by 
working under the guidance of a skilled workman. The 
science is best learned from books or through trained in- 
structors. This book aims to teach the science rather than 
the art of plant culture. 
2. The Application of Knowledge is as essential to 
success in any vocation as the knowledge itself. The 
cultivator must supplement his knowledge with sufficient 
energy to apply it in the proper place, the proper manner and 
at the proper ¢¢me, or the highest success cannot be expected. 
3. Environment is a term used to express all the out- 
side influences, taken as a whole, that affect a given object 
in any way. A plant or animal, for example, is affected by 
various external conditions, as heat, moisture, light, food, 
etc. These conditions and all others that influence the plant 
or animal make up its environment. 
4. What is Culture? The well-being of a plant or 
animal depends very much upon a favorable condition of 
environment, and with the proper knowledge, we can do 
much toward keeping the environment in a favorable con- 
dition. For example, if the soil in which a plant is rooted 
lacks plant food, we can enrich it; if it lacks sufficient 
moisture, we can dampen it; if the plant is shaded by weeds, 
we can remove them. These, and any other things that we 
can do to make the environment more favorable, constitute 
culture in the broadest sense of the term. A full knowledge of 
the culture of any plant implies a knowledge, not only of the 
plant and its needs, but of each separate factor in. its envi- 
ronment, and how to maintain this factor in the condition 
that best favors the plant’s development toward some special 
end, as the production of fruit, flowers or seed, of the finest 
