PREFACE. 



arising from a cauldron of boiling water. An Abercromby, a 

 Miller, a M'Phail, and a Nicol, have, it must be acknowledged, 

 contributed much to enlarge the sphere of our horticultural know- 

 ledge, and we readily and willingly offer them the meed of merit 

 for the benefit which the country has derived from their labors ; 

 it must, however, be admitted, that the channels through which 

 their discoveries and improvements have been hitherto dissemi- 

 nated through the country, are placed beyond the reach of the 

 middhng or lower classes, by the great expense with which the pur- 

 chase of them is attended. The transactions of the Horticultural 

 Society, however valuable and useful they may be to noblemen and 

 gentlemen, are only circulated within the sphere of a chosen few, 

 and are by far too expensive to become the property of persons of 

 moderate fortune. In the purchase of those works, excellent as 

 they may be in their kind, and highly useful as they may prove 

 to the scientific or experimental Horticulturist, the mere simple 

 Gardener, to whom the principles of practice are alone valuable, 

 would find, that to obtain the single grain of corn of which he 

 vv'as in search, he has also bought a mass of extraneous matter, 

 destitute to him of all benefit and utility. 



It becomes therefore a desideratum, that a work should be circu- 

 ' lated, in which those defects are remedied ; in which the entire sys- 

 tem of practical science is laid down in the most clear and explicit 

 terms, and in which the nobleman, as well as the more humble 

 operative gardener, may, at one glance, survey the experience and 

 knowledge of the most celebrated practical men, and find those 

 valuable rules laid down for their guidance in the management of 

 their gardens, on which must depend the plenty and excellence of 

 their produce. 



The principles which should be particularly attended to in the 

 compilation of such a work, and which will be found to have been 

 invariably adhered to in the present instance, are conciseness, per- 

 spicuity, clearness of definition, a total absence of all abstruse and 

 useless terms, and a general attention to the explanation of those 

 minutise of horticultural science, which must necessarily render a 

 work of this kind so invaluable to every individual, who takes upon 

 himself the management of a garden, whether for amusement or for 

 profit. We discard from our pages all the crude and undi- 

 gested theories of the mere experimentalist, which only tend to mis- 

 lead and confuse the mind, and we direct our attention solely to the 

 dissemination of that solid and valuable instruction, by which every 

 class of society, fiom the nobleman to the peasant, may be initiated 



