X PREFACE. 



one might be understood by reference to the 

 other. This has tended to check investigation, 

 by withdrawing the attention of the student from 

 the phenomena, and inducing him to be satisfied 

 with vague assertion rather than actual proof. 



But as mere fictitious knowledge cannot be 

 useful, it is necessary, especially for young prac- 

 titioners, that the science should be divested, if 

 possible, of some of its superfluous disguise, and 

 treated of in such language as shall be equal to 

 every capacity. 



Under these impressions the following pages 

 have been written, and in tended to bear a popular 

 rather than a scientific character, with the sole 

 view of assisting, by familiar explanation, the 

 various practice of the gardener and woodman. 

 In fact, the principal feature of the book is an 

 attempt to explain only what has been obscurely 

 or too learnedly treated before ; to mention cir- 

 cumstances which, though generally known, have 

 never appeared in print; and to make up for 

 deficient language by explanatory figures of the 

 visible constituents of plants: the intention being, 



