viii 
INTRODUCTION. 
likewise a recreation which conduces materially to 
health, promotes civilization, and softens the manners 
and tempers of men. Flowers are, of all embellish¬ 
ments, the most beautiful, and of all created beings, 
man alone seems capable of deriving enjoyment from 
them. The love for them commences with infancy, 
it remains the delight of youth, increases with our 
years, and becomes the great ornament of our declin¬ 
ing days. The infant no sooner walks, than its first 
employment is to plant a flower in the earth, removing 
it ten times in an hour, to wherever the sun seems to 
shine most favorably. The school boy in the care of 
his little plat of ground, is relieved of his studies, and 
loses the anxious thought of the home he has left. 
In manhood, our attention is generally demanded 
by more active duties, but as age obliges as to retire 
from public life, the love of flowers and the delight of 
a garden, return to soothe the latter part of our life. 
It has been the opinion of many naturalists that the 
annual development of flowers yields more real satis¬ 
faction than if all were ever flowering ; that their dis 
appearance for a season enhances the value of their 
return; and as they succeed each other in a continual 
round, the loss of any particular sort is never regret¬ 
ted. These ideas are much more applicable to herba¬ 
ceous flowers and greenhouse plants, than to shrubs 
or trees; the latter indeed we have but little control 
over, but shrubs and plants are easy of management^ 
and many of them are so beautiful in flowering, and 
at the same time so finely scented, that we never can 
be tired of either their forms, colors or fragrance. 
