PREFACE TO THE FARM AND GARDEN. THE object of this manual is to place before its readers the latest discoveries and improvements in the various departments upon which it treats. It embodies the condensed observations and experiments of scores of the best practical cultivators in Europe and America, and will, the editor trusts, form an acceptable, convenient, and reliable guide to him who is interested in the cultivation of a farm, a vegetable, fruit, or flower garden. IN THE FARM will be found a careful consideration of the nature and constituents of the different soils, and the means of their improvement by draining, subsoil plowing, manuring, &c., &c.; and specific directions for planting and cultivating the several farm crops. Fences, farm implements, and the animals, birds, and insects which infest or destroy the farmers' crops, are chapters which, it is believed, will also be examined with interest and profit. GARDENING is alike healthy, pleasant, and profitable. The productions of a good garden are appreciated by all; but by none so fully as by those whose heads and hands have been the instruments of their growth. In compact towns, where the people are packed like the bricks of their dwellings, gardens, of course, cannot be had; but in all the country, and in nineteen-twentieths of our smaller cities and villages, good gardens may and should be had; and in this work plain and practical directions will be found for the planting and culture of all the garden vegetables, and of such fruits as are appropriate to it. THE CULTIVATION OF FRUIT is the most encouraging, pleasant, and profitable of all the industrial pursuits. Nothing which our earth produces is so generally palatable to all, or its use so generally productive of health and comfort. To look upon a carefully selected and arranged fruit-garden is one of the most satisfying and tempting of earthly sights. From the first swelling of the leaf and fruit buds, through every succeeding process in the development and growth of leaves, flowers, and fruit, to the perfect maturity of the latter, it is one continued offering of hopeful enjoyment, alike pleasing to young and old. But he who would enjoy this pleasure in its fullest fruition should himself have planted the trees, and nurtured and watched their development. The incentives, therefore, to the planting and culture of fruit, are of the strongest kind, and the explicit and clear directions which we give for that purpose will, it is believed, be appreciated. The beautiful, in nature, is everywhere blended with the useful. It is not alone with grains, grasses, vegetables, and fruits that the earth teems. Everywhere, and at nearly all seasons, a profusion of flowers spontaneously expand, and for what purpose? Clearly for the contemplation of its rational inhabitants. They were intended. "To raise the mind, improve the human heart, As cultivation destroys the beautiful wild-flowers that were once so charming, if we do not supply their places by cultivated varieties, we shall be devoid of those happy influences which they so certainly produce. The knowledge of flowers and their mode of culture are but imperfectly understood by the mass of our people. Very few American families number among their books any thing upon the culture of flowers. It was to supply this general want that this part of our work has been prepared. Its previous departments have been confined exclusively to the useful; and now, for the especial use and satisfaction of our lady readers, who are, everywhere, whether in prose or poetry, not only the true standards but the just arbiters of beauty, we here devote a chapter to the beautiful, and respectfully invite their attention to the FLOWER-GARDEN; that while fathers, husbands, brothers, and dearer ones are employed in the useful and sterner duties, they may show them "Buds and sweet blossoms redolent of spring." |