TO OUR READERS. 
Another volume is completed—another six months have passed—and the Spring leaves have 
come again. Upon that volume we look with entire satisfaction, for there is not a line we desire 
to blot from its pages; for those six months we have no cause but for gratitude; and with the 
Spring comes nothing but “ smiles among its greenest leaves, and hopes among its flowers,” for 
i 
we are promised new sprays to weave among fresh shoots from our old standards, and we have 
such golden threads as the following to bind us all together :— 
“ All the land I possess stands in beau-pots at my -window, yet I take in your Serial, and f The 
Dictionary ’; have read every sentence, in both works, from the first to the last ; have written 
marginal notes innumerable, and made extra indexes to each volume; and, I confess, that when I 
take up a new number of either work, after the fatigues of the day, I feel as if I were leaving the 
cares of the world behind me to take a pleasure excursion among fields and flowers.” Now that 
correspondent resides in the Salisbury Square of London, yet The Cottage Gardener aids “ the 
pure pleasures of floriculture ” even in that locality so unsuited for gardencraft. 
Another letter of a different aspect comes next ; it is from Mr. G. Baker, Florist, of "W ells, in 
Somersetshire, and it bears this unasked-for testimony .—“ I shall be most happy to answer the 
enquiry of any person who wishes for information as to the profit to be derived from advertising 
in The Cottage Gardener. I have invariably received more orders from an advertisement in 
this valuable work than any other, not excepting the more aristocratic publications.” 
From fifteen other letters might we make quotations of similar encouragement, but we have 
extracted enough to show our readers somewhat of that which cheers us on to greater exertions, 
and sustains our confidence; yet we have greater praise—greater support—than those; for thus 
writes to us one, whom to know is to love :—“ As a clergyman, and as, I humbly hope, a Christian, 
I beg to return, both to you and to the Authoress of f My Flowers/ my sincere thanks for making 
your periodical subservient to the highest interests of man.” 
