IV PREFACE. 



astonished that men, with so very defective a school education as is 

 at present generally obtainable by the class of society to which the 

 parents of working gardeners belong, in Scotland, as well as Eng- 

 land, should have been able to effect so much by reading, by observ- 

 ation, and by attempts to commit their ideas to writing. This fact 

 shows that a very considerable degree of mental cultivation is per- 

 fectly consistent with continued bodily labour ; and it enables us to 

 look forward with confidence to a time (we trust not far distant) 

 when air mankind shall have become intelligent and enlightened ; 

 and when, in order to forward this desirable state of things, a degree 

 of school education to children shall have become a necessary of 

 life. We care nothing for the sneers of those who consider such 

 ideas chimerical ; and we do not participate in the fears of those 

 who affect to think that, when all are learned, none will be found 

 willing to work. To know and to feel that knowledge is pleasure as 

 well as power, is with us a sufficient argument for desiring that all 

 mankind, without exception, should have an equal chance of en- 

 joying this power and pleasure; and they can only obtain this by 

 being subjected to a high and equal degree of school education 

 from infancy to the age of puberty. Till this is the case, no man 

 can have a fair chance, either in society generally, or in his own 

 particular class and profession. 



Next to the advancement of the science of gardening, and the 

 improvement of its practice, our greatest ambition in conducting 

 this Magazine is to point out to all our readers the incalculable 

 advantages of early school education for children, and of self- 

 improvement for young men, and for all who are not beyond the 

 age for acquiring new ideas. 



J. C. L. 



Bayswater, Nov. 16. 1830. 



