PREFATORY NOTE ix 



Flowers and foliage humanise, civilise, and refine 

 mankind ; they indicate and also improve the 

 characters of their cultivators, whether in the 

 garden, in the house, or even on the window-sill 

 indeed it is not difficult to judge from tended 

 plants the characters and habits of the inmates of 

 the greatest or the humblest home ; and they 

 furnish the highest and best of all the pleasures of 

 recreation through our public parks and gardens, 

 of which happily there are few, if any, better 

 examples than those in the very midst of the con- 

 gested life and smoke-laden ah- of London ; while 

 the care and observation of plants almost inevitably 

 lead on to the study of the science which underlies 

 their cultivation. 



Soul, mind, and the moral and aesthetic con- 

 science are thus enriched by flowers, and any one 

 who, like the author of this book, does much to 

 increase the love and culture and artistic use of 

 them, renders the very best service to mankind. 



ST. ANNE'S HILL, 



CHERTSEY-ON-THAMES, SURREY, 



April 1910 



