INTRODUCTORY LETTER. Vll 



murmurs, every weed, even, hints, is a con 

 tribution to the wealth and the happiness of 

 our kind. And if the lines of the writer 

 shall be traced in quaint characters, and be 

 filled with a grave humor, or break out at 

 times into merriment, all this will be no pre 

 sumption - against their wisdom or his good 

 ness. Is the oak less strong and tough 

 because the mosses and weather-stains stick 

 in all manner of grotesque sketches along its 

 bark ? Now, truly, one may not learn from 

 this little book either divinity or horticulture ; 

 .but if he gets a pure happiness, and a ten 

 dency to repeat the happiness from the sim 

 ple stores of Nature, he will gain from our 

 friend s garden what Adam lost in his, and 

 what neither philosophy nor divinity has 

 always been able to restore. 



Wherefore, thanking you for listening to a 

 former letter, which begged you to consider 

 whether these curious and ingenious papers, 

 that go winding about like a half-trodden 

 path between the garden and the field, might 



