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TO OUR READERS. 
It was a very cruel tiring of Fanny to say of her cousin Tom when he joined the Bullet- 
cum-Target Rifles, that she was sure he was somewhat like Nelson; “for, as the last thing that 
Nelson did was to die for his country, so it was the last thing that Tom intended to do.” 
Now, we consider Tom was quite right ;in postponing such intention, if upon no other ground 
(and we do not intend to add to his cousin’s insult), that a live donkey is worth more than a dead 
lion. Neither do we wish you, our Readers, to apply these pokes to us— The Cottage Gardener 
—when we say that the last thing we intend to do is to die for the benefit, or for the pleasing, 
of any one. And we have been led to make this positive declaration, because we have received 
one or two letters recently containing advice, which, if we followed, we certainly very soon should 
be in the plight of the moribund lion, and certainly should not he like Nelson—for we should 
not die for our country, but to please two elderly ladies, who write as follows:— 
“ Mrs. Godarkly, who lives at Poke-in-the-Wolds, wishes that the Editors of The Cottage 
Gardener could devote a few columns to jokes and other facetiae ; she could then have from it 
additions to her scrap hook, as she now has from the Poke-in-the-Wold Chronicle —a paper of 
which 400 copies are sold weekly,”—a circulation we should soon reach if we adopted the suggestion. 
This, however, we cannot do, if for no other motive than fearing to injure the circulation of our 
friend and neighbour Punch. 
The Hon. Mrs. Dasliby Covers informs us “ confidentially," “ Though I am delighted with 
every page of The Cottage Gardener, yet the Colonel and my two sons wish that it would 
devote about half of its pages to rural sports. The Colonel says he would rather have had a 
portrait of Thormanhy than of Tredescant! ” 
Really, ladies, we cannot oblige you : we must continue without jokes, and we must refrain 
from trespassing upon the ground of neighbours whose readers delight in buffalo hunting and 
pugilism. But, though we cannot adopt your suggestions, we will endeavour to go on improved 
and improving. We have made arrangements for more numerous illustrations in every depart¬ 
ment ; and though we have to sorrow over able hands and heads and hearts that are gone down 
from our side, yet others have come forward which we are pleased and proud to find active and 
energetic to sustain us. 
To those who are contented with us as we are, we can promise, so far as human power can 
pledge, that they shall observe in our pages fresh vitality. We so promise, not because we rely 
upon our own powers, nor because we know the unweakened aid we shall receive from the good 
men and true around us, but because we find that those we would have with us still bid us “ God 
speed,” even after they have migrated to the antipodes. A letter from Tasmania has enclosed a 
sprig of Rosemary, with this sentence in a handwriting our Readers often have benefited by— 
“ Thero’6 Rosemary—that’s for remembrance.” 
Such gleams as these thrown across our path make us pass on to it again cheerily. 
