PREFACE 



AMERICAN EDITION 



Within the last ten years, the taste for Horticultural 

 pursuits has astonishingly increased in the United States. 

 There are, at the present moment, at least twelve societies 

 in different parts of the Union devoted to the improvement 

 of gardening, and to the dissemination of information on 

 this subject. Nor is it surprising that gardening should 

 be a favourite pursuit in this country, when we consider the 

 fertility of our soil, the ease and abundance in which all the 

 finer fruits of temperate climates may be produced, and the 

 comparative facility with which individuals may become 

 landholders. But although a taste for Horticulture is 

 widely diffused, and its practice is frequently very successful, 

 yet few of our amateurs or professed cultivators understand 

 the rationalia of the operations they pursue ; and hence 

 they are unable to improve or modify their methods so 

 as to ensure full success under varying circumstances, or 

 safely to apply the directions they may receive from books 

 or other sources. 



