January 11,188?. 
TO OUR READERS. 
Having “returned thanks ” no less than seventy times on the completion of the half-yearly volumes 
of this Journal for the support that has been accorded us, the good wishes that have been expressed, 
and the lively interest that has been manifested in our work, what can we say more than that our 
acknowledgments to our friends old and young, writers and readers, deepen with increasing years ? 
That we have much to gladden us and encourage us to further effort, this our last completed 
volume affords ample evidence; for in not one of all that have preceded it is the work of so many pens 
and the reflex of so many minds recorded. This shows, if anything can show, that the interest in 
gardening and kindred home pursuits is at least as active as ever, and that this activity will continue 
we have had satisfactory assurance during the present week. 
Our object is to be useful, to ncrease the trade in all gardening and home appliances, to improve 
the culture of everything that yields profit and affords pleasure, to provide a field for discussion and 
the interchange of ideas between those who are equally animated with ourselves in the desire to 
impart information and acquire knowledge; and especially our hope is to remove difficulties under 
which the young and inexperienced labour. 
To this end we invite all those whose wants we do not anticipate to ask, without apology or 
hesitation, for such information as they may need; and if it is in our power to do so we will give 
it readily, not as a task but as a pleasure. 
Correspondents, too, will in the future, as they have done in the past, submit their experience on 
any perplexing subject that is published in our columns . Thus those who seek instruction on special 
matters often become instructors by procuring information of the utmost value and importance. 
All who can impart or elicit knowledge, and assist in making clear what was before 
obscure, will be welcomed as helpers in the work which on so many good grounds it is so desirable 
to foster—the advancement of horticulture. 
