Preface ix 



small garden! And the very extreme of smallness will not 

 exclude a place from the beneficent influence of art, which is, 

 perhaps, all the more necessary and powerful in proportion as 

 the limits become more contracted. Still, a garden varying 

 in extent from a quarter of an acre to four or five acres, and 

 either wholly without an accompanying field, or having one 

 that comprises from one to twenty-five acres, is what has 

 been chiefly kept in view. 



Nor will places of greater size and more pretension than 

 have been actually contemplated in the outline of the work 

 be altogether beyond its range. Unambitious as it is in its 

 title and leading object, it may not be without interest or use 

 to the proprietor of a large domain. In its radical principles 

 art is essentially the same, whether it apply to a great or a 

 little object; and, reHeved of whatever is peculiar in its refer- 

 ence to small places (this being distinctly pointed out, where 

 it is requisite to do so) the points of which the book promi- 

 nently treats are such as embrace both extensive and Hmited 

 estates indiscriminately. The author's hope is, consequently, 

 while writing for a large and particular section of the com- 

 munity, not entirely to shut out a smaller but higher or more 

 wealthy class. 



The work of the late indefatigable Mr. Loudon, on Subur- 

 ban Gardening, being somewhat of the nature of the present 

 more restricted production, may be mentioned with the 

 greatest respect, as a voluminous and ample treatise on every- 

 thing relating to the subject. The book now submitted 

 covers but a fragment of the same field, without, it is believed, 

 at all trenching on the province of its predecessor, it having 

 been the aim to avoid, as far as possible, traveling over 

 beaten and frequented ground. The price and portableness 

 of this volume will further place it at an immense distance 

 from whatever has preceded it. 



