Preface to the First Edition. 



I have thought that, upon a subject so accordant with 

 my tastes as is horticulture, I might prepare a work 

 adapted to our climate and useful to the public. The 

 repeated inquiries made of me, as a bookseller, for a 

 practical treatise on the subject, and these inquiries 

 growing more frequent with the manifest growth of the 

 gardening spirit among us, led to the undertaking. Yet, 

 written as it has been, in the intervals of trade and sub- 

 jected to its constant interruptions — now advancing but 

 a line at once, again a page, or an article — suspended 

 totally for nearly two years, then hastily finished, looked 

 over, and printed under circumstances that rendered the 

 author's revision of the proof impossible — many defects 

 of style, and errors of the press, are manifest. These, if 

 the work contain the information sought, practical men 

 will readily excuse in a first edition. 



To claim much originality in a modern work on garden- 

 ing would display in its author great ignorance or great 

 presumption. If it did not contain much that is found in 

 other horticultural works, it would be very defective. 

 Gardening is as old as Adam, and what we know to-day 

 of its principles and operations has been accumulated, 

 little by little — the result of thousands of experiments 

 and centuries of observation and practice. Hence, from 

 the gardening literature of our language, have been se- 

 lected, for this work, those modes of culture which consid- 

 erable experience and observation have proved adapted 

 to our climate. The species and varieties of plants found 

 here most desirable for use or ornament have been se- 

 lected and described. This mass of material has been 



