VI 
INTRODUCTION. 
for professional gardeners, are seldom suitable 
to the wants of amateurs. It is so very 
difficult for a person who has been ac¬ 
quainted with a subject all his life, to 
imagine the state of ignorance in which a 
person is who knows nothing of it, that 
adepts often find it impossible to com¬ 
municate the knowledge they possess. 
Thus, though it may at first sight appear 
presumptuous in me to attempt to teach 
an art of which for three fourths of my 
life I was perfectly ignorant, it is in fact 
that very circumstance which is one of my 
chief qualifications for the task. Having 
been a full-grown pupil myself, I know 
the wants of others in a similar situation; 
and having never been satisfied without 
knowing the reason for every thing I was 
told to do, I am able to impart these reasons 
to others. Thus my readers will be able to 
judge for themselves, and to adapt their 
