USE OF THIS BOOK. 51 



sow carrots without encountering a dissertation on 

 the bleeding of vines, or the temperature fit for 

 exotics. I am morover, three hundred feet above 

 the level of the sea, and farther from the tropic than 

 I could wish ; and when I proceed with directions 

 for the month suited to Covent Garden, if not to 

 the climate of Italy, I find, for the time being, 

 nothing but ice and snow, and might as well dig a 

 Roman causeway, or sow the top of Mont Blanc. 



And then some of the finer fancy pieces of work, 

 such as budding or grafting, which in their nature 

 are very captivating, and as simple as splicing a 

 rope, cannot appear in a book of science without a 

 portentous minutiae about saddles and scions, that 

 deter from all attempts, and make it appear that 

 nothing short of a regular apprenticeship can qua- 

 lify for the mystery. Kind reader, I mean to 

 deliver thee from the killing toil of ponderosity, and 

 from the awe of mystery from the perplexity of 

 needless varieties, and from prescriptions for which 

 you have no use, or which, being worse than use- 

 less, prove false, by having no adaptation to your 

 climate. It is simply the purpose of this little 

 manual to suit the medium climate of North Bri- 

 tain, including a goodly portion of the south ; to 

 consult the economy of ministers; to make every 

 manse garden a model of neatness and fertility; to 

 give shelter and seclusion to the meditative walk 

 of the pastor, and plenty of pot-herbs, fruits, and 

 flowers, to his tasteful and thrifty wife. But the 

 secret must be out ; that to these ends it is nearly 



