QftftT NVf 
TO 0U E 
READERS. 
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Once upon a time, so classics tell us, there was a very strong fellow named Axtjeus, a son 
of the earth and the water. So great was his strength, that a temple could be built of the 
skulls of those whom he had overcome in wrestling; characteristics which induce the belief 
i that The Cottage Gardener of those days was symbolised under that name. 
AnTvEUS could never be overcome so long as he clung to his mother Earth—the soil; 
i and that’s just the case now with The Cottage Gardener: and, let us add, we mean I 
to cling to our mother as the source of our strength. As a proof of this resolution we 
may appeal to the pages of the volume of which this is the Preface, for we know from 
the best and most impartial judges that it is worthy of taking a place by the side of its 
twenty-one predecessors. Nor could it well be otherwise; for almost the entire of its 
pages are filled from the stores of the best-skilled authorities on the themes about which 
they write. This is effectual evidence that we cling to the source of our strength—the 
earth which the spades of our readers delve, over which their poultry range, and from 
, the flowers of which their bees gather honey. 
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For the future we have prepared still further evidences of our clinging as strongly 
! as ever to the source of our strength: the hands of fresh Spadesmen, of fresh masters of 
the Poultry-yard and the Apiary, and of fresh students of Nature are added to those 
other well-known and well-tried hands which give us our hold upon our mother Earth. 
I Truly may we add that that kind parent seems in no mood to part with us, her dutiful 
! offspring, for many are the additional hands she also has put forth to retain us. 
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Lastly — and it is a very conclusive feature in the symbol. Hercules only could j 
destroy the old Cottage Gardener,—Antasus, by tearing him from the earth; and it | 
* would require a Hercules to do the same now. 
