Excerpt from Conversations on Gardening: With Incidental Notes on Natural History The best preface to this little work will be an account of what has been attempted in it. The utility of exciting in the minds of young persons a fondness for gardening is universally admitted. That there are several excellent works intended for this purpose is undeniable, but the author thinks that, generally speaking, they are too technical, and likely, from the practical difficulty of their instructions, and from the time and expense required to effect what they propose, to discourage rather than to aid the attempts of the young gardener. A child who would gladly garden, and raise flowers by his own skill and labour, is mortified at reading a description of beautiful plants which he cannot hope to succeed in rearing, for want of the hot-bed, stove, forcing-house, &c., required for their culture. But, all the useful part of the occupation, as a rational and inno cent recreation, tending to form habits of industry, order, and observation, may be attained in a garden, where nothing but the more common and hardier plants are cultivated. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.