I have been induced to compile this little work from hearing many of my 

 companions regret that no single book contained a sufficiently condensed and 

 general account of the business of a Flower Garden. " We require," they 

 said, "a work in a small compass, which will enable us to become our own 

 gardener ; we wish to know how to set about everything ourselves, without 

 expense, without being deluged with Latin words and technical terms, and 

 without being obliged to pick our way through multiplied publications, re- 

 dolent of descriptions, and not always particularly lucid. We require a 

 practical work, telling us of useful flowers, simple modes of rearing them, 

 simply expressed, and free from lists of plants and roots which require ex- 

 pensive methods of preservation. Some of us have gardens, but we cannot 

 afford a gardener ; we like flowers, but we cannot attempt to take more 

 than common pains to raise them. We require to know the hardiest flowers, 

 and to comprehend the general business of the garden, undisturbed by fear 

 of failure, and at the most economical scale of expense. Who will write us 

 such a book ? J ' 



