[PREFACE]
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NOTE.
AT the request of a number of friends requiring information about gardening, we offer the present work on the uses and the cultivation of the vegetables, roots, bulbs, and plants generally used in the kitchen, as the first section of the larger work now in preparation on
THE PROPER MANAGEMENT OF THE FARM AND GARDEN IN NEW ZEALAND.
It will be seen that our remarks about laying-out the garden; preparing the ground; arranging the crops; analizing the soil; draining; trenching and fencing; are merely preliminary hints. In what follows on the uses and culture of out Kitchen Garden plants, the information will be found complete for all practical purposes; wherever there is any peculiarity in the treatment of plants, it is explained, but we have not multiplied unnecessary instructions, preferring to tell our fellow-colonists just what to do, and how to do it. If in our remarks or instructions we may appear obscure or incomplete, any questions addressed to us at the Nursery, Hobson's Bay, either personally or by letter, will always receive our earliest attention.
We would, before closing this, try to impress upon every one who has a bit of ground, the very great importance of having a Kitchen Garden, for gardens are within the reach of almost all our population, and it concerns every one of us to provide for our daily wants. We expect, therefore, to contribute as much comfort with our information, as our more noisy fellow-labourers who initiate the people into the mysteries of music, or the innocent love of dancing.
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Horticulture is a pleasing science which, gives delight to the very tyro, every step we proceed in it is complete in itself, and nature is a kind and constant helpmate; if you accomplish but the growing of a cabbage, there is an object achieved, there is the fruits of your labour to look upon. The painter may be told he is clever, and may be willing to believe it, in proportion to his ignorance of right or wrong; but the horticulturist cannot be persuaded that a bad cabbage is a good one. Nature may be fickle, but she is not so fickle as fortune: and the man with his few rods of cottage garden is as happy as the prince in the superiority of his glass houses. Not to run down other pursuits by an invidious comparison with horticulture, yet, however rational music and dancing, &c., may be, they have their temptations, which horticulture has not. Honesty forms its very base, and forethought is the first duty it engages; each operation is to provide for the future, and teaches the necessity of calculating consequences. Every growing crop brings its labour, we cannot look upon it without being reminded of what should be done, wo cannot do it without observing its advantageous effects.
Therefore, we say emulate to rival our neighbours in the articles we grow and our success will be our reward. He who enjoys the labour in a garden as a relaxation from other labour will find that "a change of work" is a holiday. How much better would it be to see every man enjoying his few roods of land, where his chidren would receive their first lesson of industry, it will make him a better man, and a better father of a family.
DAVID HAY.
Montpellier Nursery, Auckland.
