Vill PREFACE 
Royal Horticultural Society, dependent alone on sub- 
scriptions and donations from its Fellows, has done most 
good to us as a nation of practical horticulturists. It 
really does not much matter in any case, but some of us 
think that the Royal Horticultural Society should have 
been included with Kew when the latter was placed 
under the Agricultural Department a year or two ago. 
There are many difficulties in the way of a government 
subsidising a society of private subscribers, and perhaps 
it is best for things to remain as they are; but as ‘‘ charity 
begins at home,” it will please many to know that Kew, 
under the Board of Agriculture, will be a reference 
department of the utmost value to market-gardeners and 
farmers in Great Britain, just as it has been to the 
Colonies and India for many years past. I hold no brief 
for the Royal Horticultural Society, but it deserves the 
support of all interested in the finer or higher branches 
of earth culture, z.e. the economic cultivation of flowers, 
fruits, and vegetables on our native soil. Its recent 
progress has been extraordinary, and new Fellows or 
subscribers are at present flocking in at the average of 
over one thousand persons per year. A new Hall of 
Horticulture has been in course of erection for a year or 
more in Vincent Square, S.W. Its garden at Chiswick, 
—or the twelve acres or so left out of the original thirty- 
three—is now about to be given up; but in place of it, 
Sir Thomas Hanbury’s gift of the late Mr G. F. Wilson’s 
sixty-acre garden and lands at Wisley Wood near 
Weybridge will probably make ample compensation. 
Wisley is now isolated, and more difficult of access than 
was ‘‘dear old Chiswick”; but things may change, and 
Wisley become a busy focus spot, or centre, not alone 
for scientific horticulture, but for schools or colleges of 
fruit-growing, market-gardening, scent farms, and perhaps 
of elementary forestry as well. In any case no one 
fond of gardening could invest a guinea or two a year 
