Vlll PREFACE TO THE 



The works on Horticulture which have hitherto been 

 puhlished in this country, are nearly restricted to details 

 of practice, rarely attempting to convey any information 

 beyond short directions for the culture of particular crops, 

 or monthly memoranda for the management of different 

 departments of the garden. Several of these, moreover, 

 being chiefly compiled from similar foreign treatises, are by 

 no means adapted to our climate, and are consequently 

 of little value to the novice in the art of gardening. It 

 may, therefore, be presumed that a work like the present, 

 which expIains^ those universally applicable principles upon 

 which all correct horticultural operations necessarily depend, 

 will prove quite as useful to amateurs and cultivators 

 generally in this country, as in Great Britain, where it has 

 supplied a most important desideratum. It is the only 

 treatise of the kind extant, at least in the English language ; 

 and probably, no person living is so well qualified for 

 preparing such a work as Professor Lindley. It is at once 

 remarkably simple, and highly philosophical ; free from 

 superfluous technicalities, and at the same time truly 

 scientific. Without entering into tedious subordinate 

 details, it offers a lucid explanation of the general nature 

 of vegetable actions, and of the important principles which 

 lie at the foundation of all the operations of Horticulture, 

 and which the intelligent gardener or amateur can readily 

 apply for himself to each particular case. 



A knowledge of these leading principles, at once invests 

 with new and peculiar interest even the most mechanical, 



