FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



I have thought that, upon a subject so accordant with 

 my tastes as is horticulture, I might prepare a work 

 adapted to our climate and useful to the public. The re- 

 peated inquiries made of me, as a bookseller, for a practi- 

 cal treatise on the subject, and these inquiries growing 

 more frequent with the manifest growth of the gardening 

 spirit among us, led to the undertaking. Yet written as 

 it has been, in the intervals of trade and subjected to its 

 constant interruptions — now advancing but a line at once, 

 again a page, or an article — suspended totally for nearly 

 two years, then hastily finished, looked over, and printed 

 under circumstances that rendered the author's revision 

 of the proof impossible — many defects of style, and errors 

 of the press, are manifest. These, if the work contain the 

 information sought, practical men will readily excuse in a 

 first edition. 



To claim much originality in a modern work on garden- 

 ing, would display in its author great ignorance or great 

 presumption. If it did not contain much that is found in 

 other horticultural works, it would be very defective. 

 Gardening is as old as Adam, and what we know to-day 

 of its principles and operations have been accumulated, 

 little by little — the result of thousands of experiments and 

 centuries of observation and practice. Hence, from the 

 gardening literature of our language, have been selected, 

 for this work, those modes of culture which considerable 

 experience and observation has proved adapted to our 

 climate. The species and varieties of plants found here 

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