The  Journal  ok  Horticulture  and  Cottage  Gardener,  December  2),  1898. | 
TO  OUR  READERS. 
Before  these  lines  appear  the  last  Christmas  embraced  in  the  fifty  years  of  life  and  activity  of 
the  Journal  of  Horticulture  will  have  come  and  gone.  Like  a  cherished  garden  its  pages  get  fuller  and 
give  more  satisfaction  with  the  ever  increasing  variety  that  must  be  recorded  in  them. 
So  great  is  this  variety  that  there  is  scarcely  room  for  the  index  matter  without,  what  some  of  our 
friends  think,  undue  compression  into  the  allotted  space.  In  view  of  this  it  is  not  improbable,  for  the 
purpose  of  setting  out  the  contents  of  the  half-yearly  volumes  more  clearly,  that  these  prefaces  may,  as  they 
well  can,  be  displaced. 
The  cordiality  which  has  so  long  existed  between  the  conductors  and  the  readers  of  “our  Journal” 
is  firmly  established  and  will  continue  in  full  force,  for  it  is  deeply  rooted ;  and  the  same  mutual  appreciation 
of  aid  rendered  and  information  received  and  imparted  will  live  and  grow  from  year  to  year,  as  it  is  perennial. 
Therefore  in  this,  mayhap,  the  last  of  a  hundred  prefaces  save  one,  let  an  injunction  go  forth  to  all : — 
If  you  want  to  keep  up  to  date  in  gardening;  if  you  want  that  which  is  practical,  and  useful,  and 
interesting;  if  you  want  to  know  the  best  that  is  known  about  Fruit,  Vegetables,  and  Flowers,  in  various 
sections — whether  Grapes  or  Apples,  Cabbages  or  other  comestibles — Chrysanthemums,  Orchids,  and  Hoses, 
or  anything  else  that  grows  in  well-tilled  soil  of  garden  or  farm;  if  you  want  to  see  the  best  literary  work 
of  the  experienced  and  worthy  efforts  of  younger  men  to  follow;  if  you  want  a  fair  field  for  discussion  or  a 
medium  for  genial  intercommunication,  with  advice  on  varied  subjects  such  as  wide  experience  can  give; 
in  a  word,  if  you  want  threepennyworth  of  gardening  and  allied  pursuits  for  threepence,  you  cannot 
find  it  of  exactly  the  same  kind  in  any  other  publication  as  in  the  Journal  of  Horticulture.  Then  take  it 
as  long  as  you  live  and  tell  your  friends  to  do  the  same  It  is  just  in  its  prime,  like  a  man  of  fifty 
years,  fresh,  strong,  and  matured,  marching  on  with  firm,  elastic  step  towards  its  century  in  1948. 
Tbat  the  coming  year  may  usher  in  a  long  period  of  prosperity  for  “Gardening  and  Gardeners” 
is  the  earnest  desire  of — The  Editor. 
