PREFACE. 
T is not as possessing any right or power to criticise 
af thoroughly the teaching of this book that I have acceded 
to its author's request that I should write a short 
preface to it. He is a teacher who has passed through all 
grades of his profession, and is an accomplished master in the 
great science of gardening; while I, though happy in having 
often been among his pupils, am still in the lower classes of 
the school. 
But, both personally and officially, I have had many 
opportunities to estimate the value of the work done in 
Worcestershire since 1891 under the Gardening Instruction 
Scheme which the County Council sustain. Of this scheme 
Mr. Udale is the Chief Instructor, and his direction of it has 
been wise, sound, and abounding with good results. 
It is, on every ground, a matter of deep satisfaction that 
there is a general increase in gardening knowledge and gardening 
skill. There is in Horticulture a charm which enlarges as its 
students advance in the understanding and practice of it. It 
brings delight to the beginner, and a yet deeper satisfaction to 
the veteran. There is delight in the first crop from one’s own 
sowing, in the first fruit from trees of one’s own grafting, in 
the maiden blooms from the rose which, with anxiety, labour, 
and some loss of blood, one first budded. But better still the 
delight of later years, when the man, a learner still, is also 
at times a teacher, when the lessons of mistakes have been 
acquired, and when some parts of God's varied laws of growth 
are better understood. Better still, because the pleasure is 
more intelligent and more enduring. 
It is as a believer in Horticulture for profit and for 
pleasure that I hope greatly to find that Mr. Udale’s book 
may have that wide circulation which will give it the large 
power of usefulness which I am sure that it possesses. 
F. R. LAWSON. 
Clent Vicarage, 
