To all Flower Lovers who may read these pages, we come with kindly greetings. To you we dedicate our Work.

Encouraged by the many testimonials of favor with which our Flower Sketches have been received, which have appeared in the Boston Journal, Portland Transcript, and the leading Floricultural journals, we were induced to prepare this volume, intending it to be made up chiefly of those articles revised and enlarged for this purpose; but after entering upon this work, we found so little that was adapted for use, nearly every page has been written while the sheets were passing through the press.

Before we were aware, the printed matter had exceeded our proposed limits, and we were obliged to enlarge the work by additional pages, and even then omit our chapter of "Floricultural Notes," for we wished to put the book at a low price, that it might reach the masses. As it is, we are sure that we have given you a great amount of valuable information, and just such as amateurs need, respecting the habits and requirements of those flowers which are best adapted for general cultivation, and in a form specially new and attractive, combining the history and literature of flowers, with description and mode of culture.

It may be deemed strange that we should omit from a work of this character a "Talk" about the Queen of Flowers, but the subject was so full that we thought best to devote the space to other varieties and refer our readers to our recently published "Essay on Roses,"—advertised in another part of this work—in which they will find the subject fully treated.

We would here acknowledge our obligation to Mr. James Vick for the beautiful Bouquet of Flowers which constitutes our Frontispiece.

Mrs. M. D. Wellcome.

Yarmouth, Me., June 9, 1881.