THE 



FLOWER GARDEN. 



It would be an inconsiderate employment of our 

 limited space, to repeat here snch preliminar y remarks to 

 ''The Kitchen Garden," as are applicable to horticulture 

 in general. The plants which are candidates for admis- 

 sion into the flower garden, are very much more nume- 

 rous, and more varied in their constitution, native 

 climate, and soil, than those cultivated for culinary and 

 economical purposes. But the wider and more discursive 

 the topic, the stricter is the economy of packing room 

 forced upon the literary workman, who has only a 

 certain number of pages allowed him in which to arrange 

 his superabundant materials. 



Floriculture differs from kitchen-gardening in one 

 grand principle, — that, whereas the latter has no free- 

 will in the choice of the objects of its care, — for whether 

 in Great Britain or Australia, in Russia or in Italy, a 

 gentleman's household must be supplied with all possible, 

 as well as all necessary, vegetables and fruits ; the 

 flower-gardener enjoys a wide range, and liberty of selec- 

 tion, which makes a failure on his part incalculably more 

 discreditable. He has only to keep up a goodly show, 

 to maintain a fair outside, no matter with what mate- 

 rials ; if one thing will not prove effective, let him try 

 another ; if one family of decorative vegetables will not 

 suit his latitude, his aspect, and his soil, others, per- 

 fectly adapted to it, will almost beg him to patronize 

 them, Tvhile the unhappy kitchen-gardener is com- 

 pelled to furnish peaches in June, grapes in April, 



