PREFACE 



MANY useful and attractive books on gardening have of 

 late years appeared from the great standard authority, 

 Mr W. Robinson's " English Flower Garden," now in 

 its Seventh Edition, to Miss JekylPs charming "Home 

 and Garden." The bookstalls, too, are well furnished 

 every week with capital journals of horticulture. But 

 the books on the one hand are, as a rule, too large 

 and too advanced for amateurs and gardeners on a 

 small scale for the class I mean of fairly intelligent 

 young men who are placed in sole charge of small 

 gardens, who have little natural aptitude for gardening 

 and no training, and who look in vain to their employers 

 for teaching or suggestions of any kind ; and on the other 

 hand, the gardening newspapers are, I find, too fragmen- 

 tary to be of real help to them. There is, in fact, 

 from many quarters a distinct demand for a simple 



