130 Importance of improving Cottage Gardens. 



me more pleasure, in travelling through the country, than to see a 

 man, in the cool of evening, cleaning and watering his little garden, 

 with his children playing about him. 



I am not aware whether all florists' flowers can be successfully 

 cultivated here ; more particularly the picotee, carnation, auricula, 

 polyanthus and ranunculus. They all live through the winters in 

 England without protection, though persons possessing valuable 

 collections generally give them some covering during a few days 

 of severe weather which sometimes occurs. Whether such flowers 

 can be grown with equal success here, 1 am not able to state, but 

 undoubtedly many of your readers who are more acquainted with 

 the subject than myself, will give their opinions respecting it. I 

 have always been a great admirer of the flower garden, and for 

 many years spent my leisure hours in cultivating many choice 

 kinds, although I never carried it to the extent that many of the 

 " fancy " do. Those persons who have become so thoroughly 

 carried away into the love of florists' flowers as to walk twenty or 

 thirty miles in a hot day in July, to get a sight of a new carnation, 

 and having been gratified with such a view, will almost sell their 

 coats from their backs to obtain a plant, may be truly said to be 

 enthusiasts in the highest degree ; but to that class I did not be- 

 long ; nor do I wish to see any person in this community become 

 so deeply imbued with such a feeling ; it would be carrying things 

 too far, and would have an injurious rather than a good effect. 

 But I think that if mechanics, and especially persons employed in 

 manufactories, would spend their leisure hours in the garden, where 

 they have one, and where one could be obtained, they would find 

 it a place of innocent and healthful amusement, and of time well 

 spent. There only wants to be a few examples set, and a stimulus 

 will then be given ; and I have no doubt but that florists' flowers 

 of every kind could be produced, and made to take tl)e place of 

 the weeds^_your correspondent complains of. I feel unable to do 

 that justice to the subject which it requires, and hope that there 

 are many of your readers, who see its importance, and will not 

 neglect to occasionally remind us of it : at a future time, I may 

 state something upon the culture of some kinds of flowers as gath- 

 ered from my own practice ; but as I have now trespassed too 

 much upon your room, to the exclusion of more useful matter, 

 with my best wishes for the success of your Magazine, and a hope 

 that you may be rewarded for your labors, I subscribe myself, 



Boston, Feb. 1836. An old Florist. 



