THE 



GARDENERS MAGAZINE, 



INTRODUCTION. 



1 he agreeableness and utility of gardening pursuits are so 

 generally known and acknowledged, that to insist on them 

 here would be superfluous. Horticulture, as a means of sub- 

 sistence, is one of the first arts attempted by man on emerging 

 from barbarism ; and landscape gardening, as an art of de- 

 sign, is one of the latest inventions for the display of wealth 

 and taste in ages of luxury and refinement. The love of har- 

 dening is so natural to man, as to be common to children, and 

 the enjoyment of a garden so congenial to our ideas of happi- 

 ness, as to be desired by men of all ranks and professions, 

 who toil hard in cities, hoping, with Cowley, one day to retire 

 to " a small house and a large garden." The care of a gar- 

 den is a source of agreeable domestic recreation, and espe- 

 cially to the female sex ; to the valetudinarian a garden is a 

 source of health, and to age a source of interest ; for it has 

 been remarked of a taste for gardening, that, unlike other 

 tastes, it remains with us to the latest period of life, and in- 

 creases rather than diminishes. 



Next to the gratification of possessing any object, is the 

 pleasure of reading or conversing about it : and on this prin- 

 ciple, we think that a Gardener's Magazine may be an accept- 

 able addition to the periodical works already before the public. 

 In an art so extensively practised as gardening, and one daily 

 undergoing so much improvement, a great many occurrences 

 must take place worthy of being recorded, not only for the 

 entertainment of gardening readers, but for the instruction of 

 practitioners in the art. The use of the Gardener's Magazine, 

 in the latter respect, cannot be better expressed than in the 

 words of various letters which we have received on the subject 

 since first issuing our Prospectus. " The Gardener's Maga- 



Vol. T. No. 1. B 



