viii 



PREFACE. 



guide to those, who may be desirous to obtain tlie choicest fruits, 

 either as an ornament to the table, or as an article of commerce. 

 Under the respective departments of the Hot-house, the Green- 

 house, the Conservatory and Forcing-garden, the latest improve- 

 ments in their management are displayed, exemplified by drawings 

 of many valuable modern inventions for facilitating their respective 

 operations. In the former department, the new system of heating 

 forcing-houses by hot water is fully exhibited, accompanied by 

 appropriate designs for the erection of the necessary apparatus. 

 Our subordinate departments will treat of the nature of Soils — the 

 application of Manures — the choice of situations for Gardens — 

 the grafting and pruning of Trees — with every other topic con- 

 nected with the practical management of a Garden. 



The illustrative department of this Work will be enriched with 

 engravings, executed in a superior style, of some of the choicest 

 fruits and flowers, drawn and colored ad vivamj constituting itself a 

 highly recommendatory feature, at the same time that it must prove 

 of acknowledged importance to the Florist and the Pomonologist. 



Having thus particularized the leading features of our Work, we 

 confidently submit ourselves to the impartial decision of the Public, 

 for the style and manner in which the various departments have 

 been executed. Our claim to their approbation and patronage is 

 founded on the production of a work, combining in itself the soundest 

 principles of modern practice, with the latest improvements and dis- 

 coveries of the most refined science. With oi;r view constantly 

 directed to the diffusion of useful, practical information, we have 

 been equally attentive to those branches, which depend on orna- 

 ment for their excellence, or which require in their management a 

 higher degree of professional skill. To attain perfection belongs 

 not to the human character, but in proportion as it is approached, so 

 is the meed of approbation which should be awarded ; it is by that 

 standard that we are wiUing to be judged, and if by our efforts we 

 have made a single blade of grass to grow where none grew before, 

 —if we have awakened in a single individual, whether of high or 

 low degree, a love and taste for the benefits and beauties of a gar- 

 den, — if we have exploded a single erroneous custom in the prac- 

 tical department of Horticulture, or have simplified any of the diffi- 

 cult branches of the art, the principal objects of our labor have been 

 attained, and we may say with the elegant writer of antiquity, that 



" FINIS CORONAT OPUS." 



