CASSELL'S 



Popular Gardening. 



I N T E D U C T 1 N 



HE design of this work is, briefly, to bring a knowledge of the best 

 gardening practice, and of the principles on which it is based, within 

 easy reach of the people at large. It may be said that there 

 is no lack of works on gardening already ; and this is undoubtedly 

 true. Some of these, however, are scarce ; others are expensive ; and 

 most of them are now more or less superseded by the rapid advance 

 made in the knowledge and practice of gardening within the last 

 few years. Horticulture has, in fact, lately advanced with such leaps 

 and bounds that its literature has hardly kept pace with the im- 

 provements made in its practice. It may also be not unfairly said 

 that the majority of works on horticulture have been written for 

 the few rather than for the many. For one interested in gardening 

 ten years ago, however, a hundred or a thousand are interested to- 

 day ; and this large public will, it is hoped, cordially welcome an 

 attempt to place the knowledge and practice of the highest authorities within their reach. 



The rapid rise and progress of commercial horticulture, the demand for open spaces, 

 the multiplication and improvement of public parks, the enormous imports of foreign 

 fruit and vegetables, the marvellous increase in the home culture of flowers, fruit, and 

 seeds — all these things point to an unlimited extension of garden pursuits in the near 

 future. When the imperial importance of horticulture as a powerful factor in augmenting 

 the food supplies, promoting the comfort, elevating the character, and improving the sani- 

 tary state of the nation, becomes better known and more generally appreciated, few will 

 rest content until they possess a garden of some sort. And few need any longer stand 

 aside from the pursuit of horticulture, as too difiicult or too costly for them. Thoroughly 

 understood and properly practised, it is neither one nor the other ; while no pursuit 

 yields quicker returns, or richer revenues of pleasure, profit, and relaxation for the money 

 and time invested in it. 



While aiming, therefore, to make this work a safe and sufficient guide for the most 

 experienced, it is hoped to avoid a glaring fault of many current treatises on gardening, 

 viz., an assumption of the possession of too much knowledge on the part of their 

 readers. Beginning at the very beginning of our subject, as regards the earth, and those 

 plants which clothe it with plenty and adorn it with beauty, it will be our aim to teach, 

 by a series of easy articles or lessons, how the former may be ameliorated and enriched, 

 and the latter multiplied and improved. 



