PREFACE
THE following papers have been written during a last illness, which has often made it impossible to examine the specimens I could have wished. In the Primrose, for example, I have only been able to make out satisfactorily the drooping aspect of the leaf: how this combines itself with the more rigid character in the different stages of the leaf I do not fully understand. For the same reason many of the illustrations, especially in the chapters on Gardening, have been selected as being the most ready to hand rather than as the best. In my remarks on Gardening I have no wish at all to disparage the modern systems. My aim chiefly was to point out the faults of modern gardening, because its merits are such as it is impossible to overlook. Lastly, in many instances my remarks bear more or less reference to the works of Ruskin, the greatest and best of
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