GENERAL PREFACE. 



perforriied with iny owh hands. And, as 

 to it I owe very little to books, except that of 

 TULL ; for J never read a good one in my life, 

 except a French bd6k, called the Manuel du 

 Jardinier. 



8. As to farming, I Was bred at the ploiugh- 

 tail, arid in the Hop-Gardens of Farnhatn in 

 Surrey, my native place, and Which spot, as it 

 so happened, is the neatest in England, and, I 

 believe, in the whole world. All there is a 

 garden. The neat culture of the hop extends 

 its influence to the fields round about. Hedges 

 cut with shears and every other mark of skill 

 and care strike the eye at Farnham, and be 

 come fainter and fainter as you go frofn it in 

 every direction. I have had, besides, great ex 

 perience in farming for several years of late; 

 for, one man will gain more knowledge in a 

 year than another will in a life. It is the taste 

 for the thing that really gives the knowledge. 



9. To this taste, produced in me by a desire 

 to imitate a father whom 1 ardently loved, and 

 to whose very word I listened with admiration, 

 I owe no small part of my happiness, for a 

 greater proportion of which very few men ever 



