Handbook of Plants

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The late Dr Lindley, when preparing the preface for his father’s ‘Guide to the Orchard,’ wrote the following: “There are two great considerations to which it is above all things neces¬sary that the attention of the cultivator should be directed—namely, AMELI¬ORATION and PROPAGATION.” And with this object in view the present handbook has been prepared. Plant-propagation is one of the most important branches of cultivation as practised in our gardens; and especi¬ally is this so in the case of hybridism and cross-breeding, on the scientific aspects of which so much has been written to the purpose in our time. In this work the practical side of the question has been chosen, since there seemed a comparatively open field for a work of this kind, which, apart from its primary use as a popular handbook on plant propagation and improve¬ment, might also serve young garde¬ners as a stepping-stone to works of a higher scientific character, and more especially to those of Charles Darwin.