6 PRACTICAL GAEDENING. 



only to siiow the skill of the performer, which nobody wishes 

 to dispute. Our object will be to give the easiest and most 

 efficient instructions for all the necessary operations in gar- 

 dening ; not to introduce the novelties which have nothing to 

 recommend them but their novelty. 



Gardening is one of those arts which enable us to make 

 the most of nature's gifts. It has been said, over and over 

 again, "He that makes two ears of corn grow where only one 

 used to grow, is a public benefactor." In other words, who- 

 ever can increase the produce of the land, does a real service 

 to the country. Gardening, however, takes a higher stand. 

 Its object is not only to increase, but to improve the produce. 

 It is for the gardener to learn from nature what a plant re- 

 quires, and to supply that in greater or lesser abundance as 

 experiments may dictate ; he is not to conclude that if a plant 

 grows naturally in a damp place, he is to try it in water, nor 

 the other extreme. But there is no small advantage in the 

 present day, that this has been done for the younger branches, 

 by men who have patiently tried experiments, and learned 

 by their failures, as well as by success, what is the best means 

 of accomplishing an object; and that nearly all that can be 

 known, and quite all that need be known, can be learned 

 from carefully reading the information transmitted from father 

 to son, and handed onwards with the gradual but certain 

 improvements of the age. But it is gaining an object if we can, 

 from experience arising out of actual practice, give in one 

 small volume that which could otherwise only be obtained by 

 reading many works, and especially when we can omit all 

 that is useless, speculative, or whimsical, i^obody can defend 

 those writers who put twenty lessons before a pupil, all dif- 

 ferent, all professing to acconiphsh the same end, and without 

 once informing him which are the safest and best, the easiest 

 and most economical. Young gardeners, of all others, should 

 have no puzzling matters ; their path ought to be as straight 

 as circumstances will admit of We should think our work 

 but half done, or very iU done, were we to record the useless 

 variety of methods adopted by as many different authors, and 

 leave our less experienced friends to discover which is the 

 best. Yet such has been the character of some of our most 

 popular works on gardening : perhaps twenty authors are 

 quoted, and all of them persons of some note in their pro- 

 fession; but with all these quotations, the person wholly 



