Vill PREFACE. 



9 There is a foible of human nature, which 

 greatly contributes to establish and perpetuate 

 the power and the mischief of pretended gar- 

 deners. Tell a gentleman, that this is wrong, 

 or that is wrong, in the management of his gar- 

 den, and he instantly and half-angrily replies, 

 that his gardener is a -very skilful man. " That 

 may be," said I once to a friend, who, at an enor- 

 mous expense, had got two or three poor little 

 melons, while I at hardly any expense at all, 

 had large quantities of very fine ones: " That 

 may be," said I, " for skill may consist in getting 

 "you to expend your money without getting you 

 *' any fruit." The truth is, however, that it is 

 not a desire to be deceived, that produces this 

 species of perverseness : it is a desire not to be 

 thought foolish. The gentleman has chosen the 

 gardener ; and, the reason why he stickles for 

 him is, that, if he allow the gardener to be a 

 bad one, he himself has made a bad choice ; 

 and that would be an imputation on his under- 

 standing) rather than allow which to be just he 

 will cheerfully bleed from his purse pretty 

 freely. 



10. The best security against the effects of 

 this foible of human nature, is for the owner of 

 the garden to be head gardener himself ; and, I 

 hope that this work may assist in rendering this 

 office easy and pleasant. But, to perform the 

 office well, the owner must be diligent as well 

 as skilful. He must look forward. It is a very 

 good way to look attentively at every part of the 

 garden every Saturday, and to write down some, 

 at least, of the things to be done during the 

 next week. This tends to prevent those omis- 



