PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 



It is a salutary axiom, especially in this book-making age, 

 that no volume should be sent before the public without 

 something beyond a private reason for its appearance. It 

 requires to be shown that other people have an interest to be 

 served by it, and that the author's own pleasure or advantage 

 is not alone consulted. 



But even this plea, however well made out, will not be a 

 sufficient or satisfactory excuse for publication, unless the 

 work be very erudite or far in advance of the times and 

 calculated to benefit future generations. For an ordinary 

 volume, on a common subject, the additional justification 

 of being adapted and required for the use of large numbers 

 of the people is demanded. 



How far, then, these requirements can be substantiated in 

 reference to the present unassuming little essay the reader 

 will easily be able to judge when its origin and purport are 

 explained. 



Having spent a good deal of time in passing through the 

 suburbs of large towns, the author, in common with many 

 others whom he has had the opportunity of conversing with, 

 has been very much impressed with the incongruity and dull- 

 ness observable in the majority of small gardens, and been 

 led strongly to wish that the general appearance of such 

 districts were more gratifying to the passers-by, and the 

 arrangement of individual gardens more productive of pleas- 

 ure to the several occupants. There is such a humanizing 

 and elevating influence about everything that is really beauti- 



