2 
THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
teristic features, and in the requirements of privacy in one 
place and public display in another, it is simply impossible, 
in a work of such limited dimensions and pretensions as the 
present, to attempt an exhaustive treatment, either of the 
whole subject, or any one of its more important constituent 
parts. It must be understood, then, that while the attempt 
is made to gratify a variety of tastes, and accommodate a 
number of different circumstances, a somewhat contracted 
boundary of the field of operations is kept in view from first 
to last. In other words, if this book should prove useful at 
all, it will be to such as possess what may be called “ homely” 
gardens as distinguished from great and grand gardens, and 
especially from gardens that are kept for purposes of show. 
It is, above all things, necessary in a book of this kind, 
to recognize at every step the requirements of nature, and 
the best established principles of art as distinct altogether 
from individual taste and fancy. If it is herein stated that 
roses will not grow like house-leeks on tiled roofs, nor rhodo¬ 
dendrons in beds of chalk, those points must be considered 
settled, for they do not admit of discussion. But when it is 
further added that beds of roses do not assort tastefully with 
beds of geraniums, that coniferous trees are out of place in a 
flower border, there is room for difference of opinion, and the 
reader is at liberty to quarrel with the author to any extent, 
and set at nought every one of his advices and suggestions. 
Perhaps there will be less said about taste than practice in 
the following pages ; but it is a difficult matter to write on a 
subject which has occupied one’s attention, both as a business 
and a hobby, for a quarter of a century, and on many matters 
connected with which distinct opinions have been formed, 
without being occasionally betrayed into expression of those 
opinions, or, at the least, of indicating the direction in which 
intentionally-concealed opinions tend. On matters of practice, 
the practical man has within certain limits which propriety 
will point out, the right to dictate. On matters of taste, 
dictation is equally unjust and absurd. When we encounter 
subjects that divide opinions amongst those who study them, 
we must be careful to avoid dogmatism, and that spirit of 
self-satisfaction which would make “ I say” a law binding on 
all the world. But when the range of opinion is limited, and 
its limits are appreciable only by the aid of technical know¬ 
ledge, it is another matter, and the man who knows mny 
