TO OUR READERS. 
Never, do we hear the measured, continued, uniform, tick of the old hall clock, than we associate 
with it the unceasing, onward steps of Time • and, when the Printer announces— u This is the last 
number of the volume' 5 —we as invariably exclaim, “ Can six months have passed so swiftly ?" 
Our clock and our half-yearly volume are truthful monitors, and bid us to look back upon the 
past as well as to prepare for the future. Indeed, twice a year we stand, like Janus, over that 
“ last number of the volume." We are so doing now, and grateful are we to say, that not a frown. 
nor a cloud, but many a smile, are upon both our retrospective and prospective brow. There are 
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no clouds, because no promises have been broken; there are smiles, because we have been and 
hope to continue successful. 
Our next volume will complete our first lustrum, and to the present time in not one week of 
its ten years have we not been entitled to say, “ We are fulfilling our mission—usefulness;" and 
no one volume has a single page which we would cancel if we could. This is no vain-glorying— 
no utterance of vanity; for the praise is due to other heads, and other hands, and other hearts. 
Our chief merit is that we keep the post-office for the reception of the dictates of those hearts 
and heads, and for the taking care that those dictates are properly sorted, and duly delivered. 
That we have each fulfilled our parts satisfactorily is testified by our large and increasing 
circulation, by the inflow of advertisements, and by the expressions of approbation in the letters 
we receive. Eor all these we are most grateful, and we accept them, not only as rewards for our 
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past, but as stimulants to our future exertions. “ I have recommended all the young men under 
my charge to take The Cottage Gardener —to have it bound, and to refer to it as a standard 
work; for there they will find the truth." So writes the head of a well-known garden; and 
such praise, and such trust, urge us to beware of failing to justify them. No effort shall be 
wanting on our part, not only to sustain, but to increase our usefulness, and we shall be well con¬ 
tented to have no other praise bestowed upon each volume than those concluding words —“ There 
they will find the truth." 
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