EDITORIAL NOTE. — The following lists are believed to be fundamentally 

 different from all other lists of similar appearance. The great fault with the extended 

 lists found in some expensive works on gardening is that they contain too few lists and 

 too many plants in each list. Moreover, the Latin names are often put first or used 

 to the exclusion of the common names. The result is that such lists app'al the beginner 

 and are never used. Those which follow are designed to be of every-day practical 

 service to beginner and expert. The writer has resolutely turned his back upon the 

 impossible idea of absolute completeness, which has made the old lists so repellant and 

 unpractical. The keynote of the present endeavour is suggestiveness. Hence there are 

 many lists and few plants in each list. This must be the right principle. Surely, the 

 average person does not need fifty or a hundred plants for some one special purpose. 

 Four may be enough; six should be ample; ten names will give plenty of choice. 



The net result of the old-time extensive list is to impress the beginner with the 

 immense number of plants in cultivation. But such an idea is worse than useless, 

 because it discourages the beginner. According to the "Cyclopedia of American Horticulture," 

 there are nearly twenty-fiive thousand species of plants cultivated in America. But what 

 is the use of laying emphasis on a mere cyclopedic fact of such a character ? There 

 is another idea which is much more important, viz., the great diversity of human needs and 

 purposes which are comprised under the one word "floriculture." Here are two 

 hundred lists of plants, and each list represents a distinct idea. There are at least two 

 hundred distinct purposes for which people cultivate plants. The differentiation of these 

 purposes must have its educational value. It is to be hoped that the following lists will 

 help the amateur gardener to clear up his ideas and determine what he really wants. 

 The author has a wide acquaintance with plants, and there are very few in the following 

 lists with which he is not personally acquainted. A good many duplicates will 

 be found — e.g., the pansy appears in several lists, but this is part of the original plan, for 

 the best plants are relatively few in number, and it is better to suggest common and easily 

 grown ones for the various purposes to which they are adapted than rare and costly 

 plants of doubtftil suitability. 



SPECIAL NOTICE 



Dates of blooming are based upon the vicinity of New York. The names have been stand- 

 ardised with the ''Cyclopedia of American Hortictdture." 



