PREFACE. I HAVE endeavoured to show in this book how an Amateur, without much experience, may dispense with the skilled labour which is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to obtain. By carefully watching once or twice the proceedings of a thoroughly good gardener in each of the operations I have described, an Amateur should learn practically enough about the work, if he or she be a true lover of horticulture, to get even unskilled labour (when under personal supervision from the directions here given) to make the garden fairly remunerative and wholly enjoyable. If I have seemed to dwell upon some subjects with undue emphasis, it is with the knowledge that if an Amateur can supply to his friends or his visitors any particular fruit, vegetable, or flower a few weeks earlier or later than the ordinary market, he earns (among his friends) an enviable fame; but if he succeeds in two or three specialities, his reputation as a practical gardener is established for ever! |