PREFACE 



TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



THIS volume owes its existence principally to the re- 

 peated requests of a number of our fair patrons and ama- 

 teur supporters, whose inquiries and wishes for a practical 

 manual on Floriculture, at last induced us to prepare a 

 work on the subject. That now offered is given unaffect- 

 edly and simply as a plain and easy treatise on this in- 

 creasingly interesting subject. It will at once be perceived 

 that there are no pretensions to literary claims the 'direc- 

 tions are given in the simplest manner the arrangement 

 made as lucidly as was in our power and the whole is 

 presented with the single wish of its being practically 

 useful. How far our object has been attained, of course 

 our readers must judge. Nothing has been intentionally 

 concealed ; and all that is asserted is the result of minute 

 observation, close application, and an extended continuous 

 experience from childhood. We pretend not to infallibility, 

 and are not so sanguine as to declare our views the most 

 perfect that can be attained. But we can so far say, that 

 the practice here recommended has been found very suc- 

 cessful. 



Some, very probably, may be disappointed in not having 

 the means of propagating as clearly delineated as those of 

 culture ; but to have entered into all the minutiae connected 

 therewith, would have formed materials for two volumes 

 larger than the present. We might have described that 

 branch, as it has already been done in works published 



