5v 



PREFACE. 



ism arises in him — his love of industry is awakened, and his 

 country is enriched by his labors. Wherever the earth is richly 

 cultivated, there plenty and happiness abound — the desert becomes 

 peopled — the barren waste is transformed into golden fields of corn 

 and the orchards and the gardens teem with their luscious fruits. 



Horticulture has, within these few years, made more rapid 

 advances towards perfection, than perhaps any other science, 

 but it is a principle, which cannot be too forcibly and fre- 

 quently impressed on the mind of those, who undertake the 

 cultivation of a field or garden, that with the possession of 

 mere theoretical knowledge, a positive failure must be the 

 consequence. The knowledge of the management of a garden 

 is not to be obtained by pertinaciously adhering to one particu- 

 lar system, however recommended by high and celebrated names. 

 There are various and other important points to be taken into con- 

 sideration, the particular knowledge of which is only to be acquired 

 by the most constant perseverance and the most unremitting indus- 

 try, and by reducing the principles of theory to the certain and 

 infallible test of 'practice. But how is this knowledge to be ac- 

 quired ? how is it to be obtained at an expense which the limited 

 income of the gardener or the peasant will enable him to bear ? 

 The answer is obvious : it is only to be acquired by closely attend- 

 ing to the rules and precepts laid down by those eminent men, who 

 have made the science of Horticulture their sole study, who have 

 had time and ability to examine the systems and the experiments of 

 others, and who, by their indefatigable industry, have penetrated 

 into the mysteries of nature, and wrested from her, as it were by 

 force, those secrets, which she seemed determined should never be 

 disclosed. 



We disclaim all intention of decrying or depreciating the labors 

 of those, who have preceded us in the important task wliich we have 

 at present undertaken. The systems which they laid down for the 

 management of a garden were probably the most proper, and the 

 best adapted to the limited knowledge and experience of the times 

 in which they lived; but as the spirit of discovery proceeded, 

 and the light of improvement was more generally diffused, 

 the ancient systems gradually gave way, and in process of time 

 were utterly exploded. Were a gardener of the middle 'of the 

 eighteenth century to be suddenly placed in a garden cultivated 

 on the principles of the present day, his surprise would perhaps be 

 as great as that of the untutored savage on seeing a gigantic fabric 

 moving on the waters of the ocean, impelled by a little steam 



