VEGETABLES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER. 153 



much easier is the process, if you are interested 

 about the production of an artichoke, to go to that 

 article, and find all you want in one page. Let 

 the doing once follow the reading, and then there 

 is no more to learn, and no forgetting of what has 

 once been so acquired. But still the chance is that 

 something which should be done in March will not 

 be thought of till April, and this leads me to re- 

 commend that horticultural treatise of most delec- 

 table brevity anually printed in the Edinburgh ' 

 Almanack. 



Whoever remembers that an account of every day 

 must be given will see the importance of consider- 

 ing, before the day be far gone, what ought to be 

 done; and whoever acts on this principle will think 

 it no hard task to look five times in the year at the 

 Gardener's Calender. Suppose you find in the 

 work for the month some notice of the artichoke; 

 then, by referring to this book, which is designed 

 to be no bigger than an almanack, you will find, as 

 easily as looking out the letter A of a dictionary, 

 all that you require for bringing to your table the 

 rich pulp of that delicious plant. In alluding to the 

 dictionary mode of finding what the reader wants, 

 there is, besides the conveniency of the plan, 

 this reason for its adoption, that the writer finds 

 great difficulty in settling the claims of precedence 

 amongst the members of the herbal family so 

 numerous, and all so fair and good ; and therefore 

 he throws the responsibility of setting one above 

 another on some person or persons long since de- 



