6 Introduction. 



all denominations it recommends itself as useful in 

 promoting and fostering high and healthy tones of 

 religious feeling. To women generally, on whom, 

 from the Eoman matron to our own aristocrat, arti- 

 san, or peasant, formation of character and happiness 

 much depend, I commend this interesting recrea- 

 tion for their own personal enjoyment, and for judi- 

 cious encouragement amongst youth. For man or 

 woman foregoing till advanced years the pleasures of 

 married life, with its attendant cares, the more to de- 

 vote their vigorous years to some favourite pursuit, 

 our subject is very valuable. Ornamental plants 

 and flowers prove to be very useful in restoring 

 minds overwrought and unstrung, and may reason- 

 ably be regarded as more salutary in preserving the 

 mind in normal health and soundness. Now-a-days, 

 when leaders of the public mind are puzzling them- 

 selves to discover remunerative employments for 

 women and girls, is there not a large and pretty 

 open field connected with different branches of orna- 

 mental gardening, and in some for which the female 

 hand is much more gifted than the coarser hand of 

 man? 



I find in leading publications, not particularly 

 given to write on the subject, cogent reasons for 

 encouraging ornamental gardening amongst girls 

 and women of all classes. I may refer to an article 

 in The Spectator for the year 1876, page 686, recom- 

 mending this employment to ladies, not only as 

 highly conducive to health of body and mind, but as 



