VIXT. *': *; PR^AGfAjlO^'OF PLANTS. 



found not only with horticulturists, but among all learned 

 men, that he who knows most is the most willing and 

 ready to give information to whomsoever may ask it. 



The fountains of true knowledge are inexhaustible, 

 and in practical matters it is folly to suppose that to 

 know just how an operation should be performed will 

 enable all to do the work equally well. One man may 

 know how an implement should be made, and yet not 

 possess the skill requisite to make it. It is said that 

 poets are born, not. made, but this oft-repeated aphorism 

 is no more true of poets than of the mechanic or gar- 

 dener. Long experience may enable a man to become a 

 moderately good mechanic or propagator of plants, bub 

 never a first-class workman in either calling unless he pos- 

 sesses an inborn latent talent for such work that becomes 

 developed through practical experience. For this reason 

 there is not the slightest danger of the upper rooms in 

 the temple of Hortulanus ever becoming overcrowded as 

 the result of making known all that is possible to discover 

 in regard to the cultivation and propagation of plants. 



The present volume is a summing up of a life of 

 observation, study and experiment among plants, in the 

 field, forest and garden, and while in a few instances I 

 may not agree with some of our botanical authorities, 

 still, to be true to myself and my convictions, I could not 

 do otherwise than state what appeared to me to be facts. 

 It has been my aim in this, as in my other works, not 

 to mislead, but to prompt the inexperienced to think as 

 well as act to investigate, experiment and seek the truth 

 wherever it is to be found, without regard to what I or 

 other authors have said. It is a common failing among 

 cultivators of plants to consider words equivalent to 

 action, and theories as facts derived from actual experi- 

 ence. We are all far too ready to accept theories in regard 

 to the habits and structure of plants, instead of appealing 

 to the plants themselves for the truth. It is so much 



