INTRODUCTION. xi 
garden on the roof, or to grow flowers on the window-sill. 
Commercially, too, gardening has made rapid strides during 
the last fifty years. Thousands of acres are devoted to grow- 
ing produce for market, and hundreds of acres are covered 
with glass houses to force early crops to feed the evei- 
increasing population of this country. Commercial horticul- 
ture is, indeed, a great industry, and is likely to become still 
more so in years to come. The latest new phase of the 
industry—the intensive system of growing early crops in 
frames, as so successfully practised in France—is now being 
tried in this country, and if it should prove a practical 
and financial success, we shall in due course see this island 
converted into a colony of gardens. 
TASTE IN GARDENING. 
As regards taste in gardening, a wonderful change has 
taken place in this respect during the last half century. 
Our own memories carry us back to forty years ago, and 
since that time we have witnessed a remarkable revolution, 
not only in the fashioning of gardens, but in the manner 
of planting, and the kinds of plants grown. For example, 
cur earliest experience of flower gardening was the strictly 
geometrical in design, and the planting of beds in a similarly. 
rigid fashion—known as carpet bedding. In those days the 
flaring zonal, and the tricolored, bronze, golden, and _silver- 
leaved pelargonium, the gaudy yellow calceolaria, and pyre- 
thrum, and the brilliant blue lobelia, were the favoured 
plants for bedding, and hardy herbaceous plants and annuals 
were regarded as but of secondary importance. Every young 
gardener in those days regarded a knowledge of geometry 
as one of the essential accomplishments of his training, and 
many an hour was spent in devising intricate designs of a 
mosaic character for planting the beds the next season. Plants 
with beautiful or richly-coloured foliage were much in demand 
for filling in the designs, and no amount of labour and expense 
was incurred in endeavouring to produce elaborate and ornate 
designs in the way of carpet or mosaic bedding. This style 
soon satiated the palate of the wealthy, and then followed the 
even more costly rage of subtropical bedding, plants of noble 
stature, richly-coloured foliage, or exquisite blossoms from 
tropical climes, being used extensively for decorating the 
flower garden. Eventually an apostle of Nature came upon 
the scene, in the person of Mr. William Robinson, a true 
