PREFATOBT. ▼ 



came the recipients of the London Gardener's Chronicle, 

 edited by Prof. Liudlcj, our treasures were inestimable. 

 Many hundred times have we lam awake for hours, unable 

 to throw off the excitement of preaching, and beguiling 

 the time with imaginary visits to the Chiswick Garden, to 

 the more than oriental magnificence of the Duke of Devon- 

 shire's grounds at Chatsworth. We have had long discus- 

 sions, in that little bedroom at Indianapolis, with Yan 

 Mons about pears, with Vibert about roses, with Thompson 

 and Knight of fruits and theories of vegetable life, and 

 with Loudon about everything under the heavens in the 

 horticultural world. 



This employment of waste hours not only answered a 

 purpose of soothing excited nerves then, but brought us 

 into such relations to the material world, that, we speak 

 with entire moderation, when we say that all the estates 

 of the richest duke in England could not have given us 

 half the pleasure which we have derived from pastures, 

 waysides, and unoccupied prairies. 



If, when the readers of this book shall have finished it, 

 they shall say, that these papers, well enough for the cir- 

 cumstances in which they originally appeared, have no such 

 merit as to justify their republication in a book form, we beg 

 leave to tell them that their judgment is not original. It is 

 just what we thought ourselves I But Publishers are willful, 

 and must be obeyed 1 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

 BuooKLYK, June 1, 1859. 



