PREFACE. 



There are many excellent works on Gardening in the English 

 language ; but there seemed to be room and a demand for 

 another. No other work fills just the place that this is intended 

 to fill — no other quite meets the popular want which we have 

 aimed to satisfy in this. 



We saw the need of a small, cheap work, embracing not only 

 brief, simple, and easily understood directions for the cultivation 

 of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, but also a succinct exposition 

 of the theory of horticulture, as deduced from the nature of 

 soils and manures, and the laws of vegetable life and growth ; 

 to give the reader something to fall back upon, whenever the 

 practical instructions, which can not be adapted to every change 

 of circumstances, shall fail ^o furnish a sufficient guide. How 

 well we have succeeded in meeting this need we leave the reader 

 to judge. We will only say, that our little book has been care- 

 fully prepared, and combines the results of experience, observa- 

 tion, and study. In preparing it, we have aimed simply at use- 

 fulness, and have made no effort for the attainment of any 

 further originality than the end in view required. We are neces- 

 sarily placed under heavy obligations to our predecessors in the 

 walks of horticultural literature ; but what we have derived from 

 them has, in most cases, been re-written, and so modified, to 

 adapt it to our purpose, that formal credit has, except in a few 



