the book is therefore necessarily written from this region as a base.
One gardening book cannot be made to apply in its practice in all parts
of the United States and Canada unless its instructions are so general
as to be practically useless; but the principles and points of view may
have wider application. While I have tried to give only the soundest and
most tested advice, I cannot hope to have escaped errors and
shortcomings, and I shall be grateful to my reader if he will advise me
of mistakes or faults that he may discover. I shall expect to use such
information in the making of subsequent editions.

Of course an author cannot hold himself responsible for failures that
his reader may suffer. The statements in a book of this kind are in the
nature of advice, and it may or it may not apply in particular
conditions, and the success or failure is the result mostly of the
judgment and carefulness of the operator. I hope that no reader of a
gardening book will ever conceive the idea that reading a book and
following it literally will make him a gardener. He must always assume
his own risks, and this will be the first step in his personal progress.

I should explain that the botanical nomenclature of this book is that of
the "Cyclopedia of American Horticulture," unless otherwise stated. The
exceptions are the "trade names," or those used by nurserymen and
seedsmen in the sale of their stock.

I should further explain the reason for omitting ligatures and using
such words as peony, spirea, dracena, cobea. As technical Latin
formularies, the compounds must of course be retained, as in _Paeonia
officinali,_ _Spiraea Thunbergi,_ _Dracaena fragrans,_ _Coboea
scandens;_ but as Anglicized words of common speech it is time to follow
the custom of general literature, in which the combinations ae and oe