2‘6 mo 
48466 
TO OUR READERS. 
At the close ol our last Volume we expressed a hope for a blessing on our next six 
months’ exertions, and that hope has been realized. We promised to report the 
result, and we now fulfil that promise. 
Our pages throughout the present Volume are evidences of the unwearied and 
successful exertions of our contributors, and our list of readers gives the most unmis¬ 
takable ol testimony that those exertions meet the requirements of the gardening 
community. Another section of that community is now annually largely increased— 
the proprietors of small plots obtained by the agency of Allotment and Freehold 
Land Societies. To the information needed by the tenants of these plots we shall 
specially direct a portion of our attention; lor although all the contents of our 
columns are directly, or indirectly, useful to all garden cultivators, yet these tenants 
often need more elementary information, and it will be our endeavour to impart it. 
We may often fail to state such particulars as they need, but when we do so fail, it 
will be received as a favour if fresh questions are asked, and our short-comings are 
pointed out to us. 
This leads us to observe that apologies often accompany the inquiries sent to 
us. Such apologies are quite misplaced, for we covet such inquiries as the best of 
guides to the information required from us. It is easy to teach when we know what 
is desired to be learned. 
Our endeavour to encourage such inquiries has been so successful, that the 
replies to them have become a prominent and highly useful portion of our labours. 
So numerous and so various have inquiries become, that we shall endeavour in future 
to give the answers to them more prominently, and, in some degree, classified. 
In conclusion, we tender our hearty thanks to all our friends and allies, who, we 
rejoice to find, we have in all the countries of Europe except Russia, and by their 
continued aid we feel pretty sure of making an impression even there. We are not 
superstitious, but when we observe that whilst our Great Northern Carnation is dead, 
our Queen Victoria Carnation is more than usually vigorous, we cannot but receive it 
as a good omen, not only in our own little warfare against ignorance, but in the far 
mightier one that is now impending. 
