PREFACE 
TO THE FIKST EDITION. 
This volume owes its existence principally to the repeated 
requests of a number of our fair patrons and amateur sup- 
porters, whose inquiries and wishes for a practical manual 
on Floriculture at last induced us to prepare a work on the 
subject. That now offered is given unaffectedly and simply 
as a plain and easy treatise on this increasingly interesting 
subject. It will at once be perceived that there are no pre- 
tensions to literary claims — the directions are given in the 
simplest manner — the arrangement made as lucidly as was 
in our power — and the whole is presented with the single 
wish of its being practically useful. How far our object has 
been attained, of course our readers must judge. Nothing 
has been intentionally concealed ; and all that is asserted is 
the result of minute observation, close application, and an 
extended continuous experience from childhood. We pre- 
tend not to infallibility, and are not so sanguine as to declare 
our views the most perfect that can be attained. But we 
can so far say that the practice here recommended has been 
found very successful. 
Some, very probably, may be disappointed in not having 
the means of propagating as clearly delineated as those of 
culture ; but to have entered into all the minutiae connected 
