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Custom authorizes a Preface, the object of which is, I suppose, that 

 the wi'iter may apologize for his own short-comings, if he has discovered 

 them, rectify his omissions, and entice the reader, by gentle entreaties, 

 to dip into his pages ; or, at least, to take his leave in a manner calcu- 

 lated to keep his memory green in their recollections. In the present 

 work the wi'iter is conscious of many deficiencies : the subject is a very 

 large one, and a book of much larger dimensions could hardly pretend 

 to be more than a Book of Hints on the Management of the Garden ; but 

 it is the man who can appropriate hints, improve upon, and make them 

 his O'vvn, who is the true gardener. This is sti'ikingly " put " in an 

 anecdote related by Sir E. L. Bulwer Lytton, in the delightful series 

 of Essays on "Life, Literature, and Manners," now publishing in Black- 

 vjoodbs Magazine. 



*' A. certain nobleman, very proud of the extent and beauty of his plea- 

 sure-grounds, chancing one day to call on a small squire whose garden 

 might cover an acre, was greatly struck with the brilliant colours of his 

 neighbour's flowers. ' Ay, my Lord, the flowers are well enough,' said the 

 squire ; ' but permit me to show yow. my grapes.' Conducted into an old- 

 fashioned little greenhouse, which served as a viner}', my lord gazed with 

 mortification on grapes twice as fine as his own. 'My dear friend,' said my 

 lord, 'you have a jewel of a gardener ; let me see him.' The gardener was 

 called — a simple-looking young man, imder thirty. ' Accept my compliments 

 on your flower-beds and your grapes/ said my lord, 'and tell me, if you can, 

 why your flowers are so much brighter than mine, and your grapes so much 

 finer. You must have studied your profession very profoundly.' — ' Please your 

 lordship,' said the man, 'Iben'tno scholar; but as to the flowers and the 

 grapes, the secret of treating them as I do just came to me by chance.' " 



The "chance" was this : — Being in London, he had accidentally over- 

 heard a discussion between two medical men on the merits of charcoal 

 in cholera; one of them mentioning its good effects on sickly vines, and, 

 says he, " see how a sprinkling of it will brighten up a flower-bed." The 

 young gardener followed up the hint, and tried the charcoal dressing. 



*•' * And that's how the grapes and flower-beds came to please you, my lord ; it 

 was by a lucky chance that I overheard these gentlemen, please your lordshij).' 



" ' Chance happens to all,' answered the peer, sententiously ; ' but to turn 

 chance to account is the gift of few.' 



"His lordship returned home, gazed gloomily on the hues of his vast 

 parterres, and scowled at the clusters of grapes ; he summoned the gardener, 

 communicated what he had seen and heard, and produced a bunch of grapes 

 he had brought from the squire's vines. 



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