THE

GARDENER'S MAGAZINE,

&c. &c.

THE

INTRODUCTION.

HE agreeableness and utility of gardening pursuits are so generally known and acknowledged, that to insist on them here would be superfluous. Horticulture, as a means of subsistence, is one of the first arts attempted by man ou emerging from barbarism; and landscape gardening, as an art of design, is one of the latest inventions for the display of wealth and taste in ages of luxury and refinement. The love of gardening is so natural to man, as to be common to children, and the enjoyment of a garden so congenial to our ideas of happiness, as to be desired by men of all ranks and professions, who toil hard in cities, hoping, with Cowley, one day to retire to "a small house and a large garden." The care of a garden is a source of agreeable domestic recreation, and especially to the female sex; to the valetudinarian a garden is a source of health, and to age a source of interest; for it has been remarked of a taste for gardening, that, unlike other tastes, it remains with us to the latest period of life, and increases rather than diminishes.

Next to the gratification of possessing any object, is the pleasure of reading or conversing about it: and on this principle, we think that a Gardener's Magazine may be an acceptable addition to the periodical works already before the public. In an art so extensively practised as gardening, and one daily undergoing so much improvement, a great many occurrences must take place worthy of being recorded, not only for the entertainment of gardening readers, but for the instruction of practitioners in the art. The use of the Gardener's Magazine, in the latter respect, cannot be better expressed than in the words of various letters which we have received on the subject since first issuing our Prospectus. "The Gardener's Maga

zine," say these letters, "will put Gardeners in distant parts of the country on a footing with those about the metropolis." It is not that improvements are exclusively made in the latter circle; but more are made there than anywhere else, and most of those made elsewhere are soon heard of in the metropolitan district. Besides, almost all new importations are made to London, and all new varieties of useful or ornamental productions, originated in distant parts of the country, soon find their way to the metropolis, either for the purpose of being made more generally known, or to be propagated for sale by nurserymen and market gardeners.

The London nurseries and market gardens are the first schools in the world for vegetable propagation and culture, and for acquiring a practical knowledge of botany. The knowledge acquired in these schools will not alone fit a gardener for undertaking the charge of a private gentleman's garden in the country; but unless a private gentleman's gardener has been properly initiated in this species of elementary knowledge, though he may know the common routine for supplying a family with fruits and vegetables, yet, he will be unfit to be entrusted with new or with rare plants, and incapable of keeping pace with the progress of his art. As a recent and very considerable accession to the advantages of the metropolis, we may add that great centre of intercourse and emporium of novelties, the London Horticultural Society, and its extensive garden. The impulse which this Society has given to horticultural improvement in Britain, is truly astonishing; and even on the continent, and in America, similar societies have sprung up in imitation of it, and for the same objects. In the gardens of this Society many new plants have been already introduced; and this garden affords one of the best chances of settling the nomenclature of edible fruits and culinary vegetables, respecting which, at present, there is great uncertainty and confusion. The general practice of gardeners and their employers confirms this view of the importance of the metropolitan district. When a gardener is in want of a situation, or a gentleman in search of a capital gardener, both apply to a London nurseryman: inferior situations may be filled up from provincial nurseries, but first-rate gardeners for every part of the empire are obtained from London. A first-rate gardener in place, in a distant province, would soon cease to be such, unless he paid frequent visits to those nurseries for improvement. In this respect, a gardener who does not stay longer than six or seven years in one situation has a great advantage over him who remains double or treble that time; for before he acquires a new situation, he goes to his patron nurseryman, and works under

him till a suitable one occur. During this time, he brings forward his stock of knowledge of new plants and of new modes of culture to the present standard, and goes to his place a first-rate gardener as before. Another gardener, remotely situated, who remains in the same situation for twenty years, can scarcely avoid during that time falling greatly behind in the knowledge of modern improvements. Supposing him to leave his situation and go to work in a London nursery, he would be astonished at the number of new plants introduced; at the abundance and cheapness of such as were rare when he was formerly there; at the number of new varieties of fruits, of which he had not before even heard the names; at new modes of propagation for rare plants, and new modes of culture for common crops. This has been the case at all times, but it is more particularly so at present, when the progress of horticultural improvement is rapid beyond all former precedent. There seems, as we have before observed, no means so likely to put gardeners residing at a distance on a footing with those round the metropolis, as the circulation of a Gardener's Magazine and Register, recording every thing new as it occurs, and open to the communications both of practical and of theoretical men. By means of such a work all gardeners whose previous information and habits are such, that they can derive advantage from reading, will be enabled to keep up their stock of knowledge to the full standard of value. Those who cannot or will not read, never have been, nor ever can be, first-rate gardeners.

While the Gardener's Magazine is improving the knowledge of gardeners, it will at the same time extend the sources of enjoyment to be procured from a garden. Many gentlemen in the country, who have not paid any attention to gardening themselves, and whose worthy and industrious gardener has, perhaps, gone on in the same track for twenty or thirty years, have little idea of the variety of productions which their gardens are calculated to afford at, perhaps, little or not more expence than is at present incurred. We pass over the modern improvements in the forcing department, merely observing, that there is no garden where cucumbers and melons are grown which might not with little or no increase of stable-dung grow pine apples. A number of kitchen gardens in the country are worn out with age and cropping; the fruit-trees against the walls have ceased to bear freely: the walls are dilapidated by the alternate driving and drawing of nails for perhaps half a century; and the soil is every where exhausted. The proprietor submits to the privations necessarily incurred under these cir cumstances, and gradually becomes habituated to them, think

ing, perhaps, that there is no remedy but an entire new garden on a new site. But the expence of so forn.idable a change may sometimes be saved by the exercise of a little knowledge. If the situation and the subsoil be good, the surface soil may be wholly or partially renewed; and brick walls will last for ages by jointing them and washing them over with Roman cement. Old fruit trees, if not too deeply planted, may be headed down, or re-grafted, or they may be totally removed and replaced by young trees.

There are few things relating to kitchen-gardening in which there is greater room for improvement than in the selection of fruit-trees. A number of the fruits grown in almost every garden are of very inferior flavour, arising from the sorts originally selected either not having been good, or from the plants supplied not having proved true to their names. A great many excellent sorts of hardy fruits have been originated or imported, within the last twenty years. Few of these sorts are generally known in the country, and, consequently, are seldom enquired for, either for the purpose of planting new gardens, or of improving such as are already established. The idea is, indeed, too general, that when once a garden is planted it is completed; but a gardener, anxious to make the most of his garden, will be continually introducing new and better sorts of the articles which he cultivates, and eradicating such as are of inferior quality to make room for those of a superior description.

The same style of remark is applicable to ornamental trees and shrubs. A great many new sorts of these have been introduced within the present century; and a number of those formerly in the country, which were considered tender, and requiring the protection of a wall or of glass, have been found to be quite hardy and fit for the open lawn or shrubbery. Still less is known in distant provinces of these trees and shrubs than of new fruits and culinary vegetables. There is scarcely any of them to be seen in the country nurseries, so that a proprietor of a garden has little chance of hearing of them, either through his gardener or his nursery-man. The deficiency of ornamental trees, in even the best Scotch nurseries, is astonishing, when we consider the eminence of Scotland in gardening: as a result, we find the pleasure grounds of the north much less rich in variety than those of the south.

The importance of adding to our stock of hardy trees and shrubs, seems to be less generally felt than it ought to be. Tender exotics, requiring the protection of glass, must ever be of comparatively limited culture and imperfect developement; but trees and shrubs, which will grow in our parks and

pleasure grounds, may be planted by all, and enjoyed by al!: an increase of these would add a charm to the woodland scenery of the country, which would be felt alike by private owners and the public. The introduction of a new hardy tree or a shrub, or the acclimating of one hitherto supposed too tender for the open air, may, therefore, be considered as among the most patriotic of gardening efforts. But we have said enough to show the necessity of disseminating a knowledge of the improvements daily making in gardening, as an art of culture.

To the improvement of gardening, as an art of design and taste, we intend in this Magazine to pay particular attention, and the more so as that department does not seem to be included in the objects of the London and the Caledonian Horticultural Societies: the published transactions of these bodies being exclusively devoted to vegetable propagation and culture. Our Magazine will embrace both departments of the art; and while we have the satisfaction of co-operating with the horticultural societies, by disseminating among practical gardeners the knowledge contained in their valuable publications, we will have the additional gratification of directing the proprietors of country residences to a species of elegant improvement, the taste for which at present is very generally dormant.

It seems to be now almost forgotten that England first set the example in this branch of art; and that landscape gardening, about a century ago, was as much the fashion as horticulture is at present. Since the beginning of the present century, and even before, this taste has been on the decline; having given way, first, to war and agriculture, and since the return of peace to horticulture.

But landscape gardening has created, in Britain, parks and pleasure grounds unequalled in any other part of the world. These remain as examples of what might still be done; but in laying out new, or improving old residences, there seems to be a great want, either of industry or ability to profit from them. There are, no doubt, exceptions; but there is not a tithe of the country seats which have been laid out within the last thirty years that do not owe their beauty more to the climate and the architect than to the disposition of the woody scenery. Very few country gentlemen have a just feeling for what painters call general effect: breadth of light and shade: connection and grouping of parts; the importance of which is so ably illustrated by Girardin, Price, and other authors. Many, with every desire to excel, consider that when they have engaged a first-rate gardener, he will do every thing required in laying out or improving a place. But the sort of knowledge required for the