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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

ix

culture, that he thought it necessary, in recommending a new mode of cultivating the Pine-apple, and in objecting to methods at that time commonly in use, to express himself in the following words :-"I beg it to be understood that I condemn the machinery only which our gardeners employ, and that I admit most fully their skill in the application of that machinery to be very superior to that which I myself possess. Nor do I mean, in the slightest degree, to censure them for not having invented better machinery, for it is their duty to put in practice that which they have learned; and, having to expend the capital of others, they ought to be cautious in trying expensive experiments, of which the results must necessarily be uncertain; and, I believe, a very able and experienced gardener, after having been the inventor of the most perfect machinery, might, in very many instances, have lost both his character and his place before he had made himself sufficiently acquainted with it, and consequently become able to regulate its powers."

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

AFTER a lapse of fifteen years the author has been called upon to prepare for the press a Second Edition of this work. In obeying the call, he gladly avails himself of the only public opportunity that he can have for thanking his foreign editors for the honour they have done him by translating the book into German, Dutch,† and Russian.‡

*

He has always felt that the naked principles laid down in the First Edition were less interesting than they would have been if they had received more extensive illustration from examples and frequent reference to practical operations. He has now, therefore, greatly extended the matter, and endeavoured, whenever it appeared necessary, to support the doctrines of physiology by an appeal to facts which are or should be familiar to cultivators. In doing this he has to express his sincere gratitude to the numerous intelligent contributors to the Gardeners' Chronicle, who during more than fourteen years have honoured

Theorie der Gartenkunde, &c., uebersetzt mit Anmerkungen von Ludolph Christian Treviranus. Erlangen, 1843.

Theorie der Gärtnerei, &c., aus dem Englischen übersetzt von S. G., mit einer Vorrede, Anmerkungen, und einem Anhange, versehen von einigen Freunden der Horticultur. Wien, 1842.

+ Grondbeginselen der Horticultuur (Tuinkunst) naar het Engelsch van John Lindley, &c.; mit bijlagen door W. H. de Vriese. Amsterdam, 1842.

Teoria Sadovodstva ili opuit iziasnenia glavneïshich proizvodstv sadovodstva iz natshal rastitelnoi phisiologii. Edited, with various notes and additions, by J. Schychowsky. St. Petersburg, 1845.

xii

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

him with their confidence, for a vast accumulation of horticultural information upon almost every point that can engage the thoughts of a gardener; it is they who have put principles to the test of experience, and who have shown how little there is of doubtful or unsound in the Theory of gardening; and he thinks it due to them to acknowledge that whatever new merit this book may possess is owing greatly to the experience gained by their friendly cooperation.

ACTON GREEN,

April, 1855.

ERRATUM.

Page 101, for Baroness Rolfe read Baroness Rolle.

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