PREFACE 



ALTHOUGH books on gardening are now many in number, 

 there has scarcely as yet been one quite suitable for begin- 

 ners that is, both fully illustrated, and so plain and easy that 

 it does not either alarm or discourage the absolute novice. 

 There are many now who wish to learn, and a simple book 

 that will put them in the right way, and be truly a beginner's 

 book, telling all about gardening in the simple language that 

 all can understand, and describing garden methods and prac- 

 tice in detail, can hardly fail to be welcome and helpful. 



For the best of all gardening is always the simplest. 

 Sometimes, in a little wayside cottage strip, that is tended by 

 labouring folk who love flowers, there may be seen some 

 combination of one or two or of two or three kinds of plants 

 that is of so high an order of beauty that one may look in 

 vain for anything as good in many a large place where skilled 

 labour is abundant and expense is not considered. 



Those who are growing old among the flowers become 

 more and more aware that all the best things that can be seen 

 or enjoyed in the garden are the simplest things, done in the 

 simplest ways. One may even venture to say that this ad- 

 mirable quality of simplicity is the beginning and end of all 

 good things in gardening. For instance, a child might be 

 taught, as a first lesson in planting, to make a little edging of 

 white Pink or of Thrift or of London Pride, and would be 

 rewarded by seeing the result of its work a year after in its 

 full beauty of young strength of bloom. Thirty or forty years 

 later, the same child, now grown to full years of experience, 

 will look at such a little two-year-old border, and will see 

 that it is always a thing perfectly good of its kind, and a living 



vil 



