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TO OUR READERS. 
Haying concluded our second volume, and with it the first year of our periodical existence, we 
turn, like the Pilgrim, to look back over the path we have traversed. Like him we are grateful for 
the past and hopeful of the future : grateful because we have won our way most successfully, and 
because we know we have achieved a measure of good by improving the gardening, and by sprin¬ 
kling pleasure and comfort round many British homes. We are hopeful because our sphere of use¬ 
fulness widens as we go, and because the materials and the aid for effecting our purposes increase 
around us as we advance. The cultivation of the soil is ever improving, to keep pace with the 
increased wants and numbers of mankind ; and, like the Giant of old, our contributors, each time 
they touch the soil, seem to gather fresh strength for successful efforts. We can assure our readers 
that the difficulty with us all is not to find information, but to select that which best suits their 
present need; and to do this will obtain, as it has obtained, our untiring exertions. There is a 
rich harvest to be gathered in during the year before us, and at its close may we again be able to 
say, with that Pilgrim of other times to whom we have alluded, ff We gather strength from the 
things which are passed/ 
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