PREFACE. Vll 



my accustomed track, with a view to afford them mental 

 recreation while engaged in cultivating the transient inmates 

 of a garden ; and from a conviction that the flowers of 

 poesy are not only conducive to intellectual pleasure, but 

 that they are calculated to improve the mind, and to relieve 

 it of that intense thought which necessarily attends practical 

 pursuits, I have ventured to intrude on the patience of 

 those whose sole object maybe practical knowledge. I can, 

 however, inform such, that no efforts have been spared to 

 render the work generally instructive as well as amusing, and 

 would invite the attention of my readers to a perusal of its 

 contents, before they commence the process of cultivation > 

 and if they select a salubrious soil, and provide suitable seeds 

 and implements, I doubt not that they will experience the 

 highest satisfaction in their instructive, pleasant, and health- 

 ful employment. 



In conclusion I would observe, that in order to keep pace 

 with the increasing taste for flowers, and to render this 

 work a desideratum to those amateur florists, who cultivate 

 plants merely for amusement, I have in this edition intro- 

 duced several important improvements; I am however aware 

 that it may be viewed by some as still an imperfect worki 

 and having no wish either to overrate its merits or conceal 

 its defects, I am free to acknowledge, that in aiming to 

 divest the subject of those technicalities, which too often 

 discourage new beginners in this pursuit, the style may 

 perhaps in some instances have degenerated into a censu- 

 rable quaintness. The apology I offer is, that having spent 

 a greater portion of my time in the wide field of nature, than 

 in the study of the dead, or even living languages, I have 



