CONTAINING PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR THE CULTIVATION OF ANNUAL, FLOWERING PLANTS, OF DIFFERENT CLASSES, HERBACEOUS AND SHRUBBY, BULBOUS, FIBROUS AND TUBEROUS ROOTED, INCLUDING THE DOUBLE DAHLIA. WITH A MONTHLY CALENDAR, CONTAINING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE MANAGEMENT THE WHOLE ADAPTED TO THE CLIMATE OF THE UNI TO A NEW AND IMPROVED EDITION. IATION BY THOMAS BRIDGEMAN, GARDENER, SEEDSMAN, AND FLORIST. NEER NEW YORK: FOR SALE BY THE AUTHOR, BROADWAY, CORNER OF EIGHTEENTH-STREET, AND EDWARD WALKER, 114 FULTON-STREET, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA [Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred and Forty-seven by THOMAS BRIDGEMAN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New-York.] PREFACE. THERE is no subject, perhaps, that occupies the mind of man that is better calculated to afford substantial intellectual pleasure and gratification than the study of Nature, especially if we view it from the consideration, that as man is subservient to God, so are all instinctive beings, as well as the productions of the earth, subservient to, and designed for, the use of man. Man being thus dignified, and endowed with understanding, reason, and moral freedom, is exalted far above all other creatures of the earth. How important, then, that he should maintain his station in society as becomes a rational and intelligent being, instead of sinking himself, as too many do, below the meanest of the mean, by spending his time in dissipation and vice. It is a fact, which cannot be controverted, that the want of mental and physical employment often proves an incentive to vice, which will almost invariably produce misery; and as surely as the earth will bring forth noxious weeds, when left uncultivated, so surely will one vice beget another; which, if not eradicated, will multiply to an alarming extent, until its victims become a pest to society, and a disgrace to mankind. Now as happiness is preferable to misery, virtue to vice, knowledge to ignorance, and order to confusion, how important it is that those who pretend to be rational beings should employ their leisure hours in a manner calculated to insure the greatest amount of that which is intrinsically valuable. What subject can be better calculated to promote such an object than the subject of cultivation, when viewed in all its bearings? But as we are about treating of Flowers, I shall confine my ideas as closely as possible to the subject under consideration, trusting that while the hand is employed in cultivating the transient beauties of a garden, the attentive mind will feast daintily on the study of Nature, and in the |