XXIV INTRODUCTION. 



To proceed to the subject immediately be- 

 fore me, which, in fact, is nothing more 

 than the attempt to describe the mode of 

 treatment necessary to be pursued in the cul- 

 tivation of a very small part of the flowers 

 just named. 



Before I enter upon it, it may perhaps be 

 expected that I should first state some reason 

 or other why I have been induced to publish 

 the following concise and practical treatise on 

 the culture of these flowers (so I have thought 

 fit to style it), since these flowers and their 

 mode of treatment are described more or less 

 in almost every book on gardening. If I 

 should attempt to give any such reason, most 

 likely it would appear to many neither suffi- 

 ciently weighty nor satisfactory, inasmuch as 

 it would neither prove the necessity of any 

 such publication, nor show that I, from my 

 habits of life, not being professionally a gar- 



