PREFACE. 



Gardening is one cf those occupations that combines pleasure with 

 healthful employmer Reason and history unite in regarding it as the 

 first pursuit that engaged the attention of man. 



The fruits of the Garden are appreciated by all, and contribute much 

 to the pleasures and comforts of life. But many possess gardens un- 

 worthy of the name : for want of a knowledge of their management they 

 are unable, in season, to supply the wants of their own table. To re- 

 medy this deficiency is the object of this compendium. Into it nothing 

 has been admitted that is not of the most practical character. It may 

 be received as the result of thirty years' experience and observa- 

 tion on the cultivation of vegetables axb fruits. To have given 

 the reason for many of the operations recommended, or the process by 

 which certain conclusions have been arrived at, would have enlarged 

 the volume without adding to the value of the advice. It has been the 

 object of the author to describe the preparation of the soil, the mode of 

 culture, and the best varieties of every fruit or vegetable for market or 

 family supply, in the plainest language, and most concise terms. The 

 subjects are arranged in alphabetical order, so that any one, in an in- 

 stant, for any part of the United States, may see how to cultivate, when 

 and what to smo, and when to reap. Hitherto the works on this subject 

 have been merely repetitions of European writers, not at all adapt- 

 ed to our climate ; or when compiled with some degree of considera- 

 tion as to that, yet simply the names of vegetables have been given, 

 allowing the gardener or amateur, ungufded, to select whatever might 

 strike his fancy, without enabling him tc supply his wants, In thie 

 Manual will be found a short but faithful description of the best vegeta- 

 bles and fruits ; their period of maturity or their relative earliness or 

 ateness, with their Botanical, English, French, and German names — a 

 facility not met with in any similar work we have ever seen. 



We have omitted a few vegetables of a coarse description, principally 

 raised for cattle, by field culture. Among which are the Portugal, and 

 Cow Cabbage. The former appeared lately as a new vegetable, under 

 the name of Couve Trpnekuda^ though cultivated twenty years ago under 



