By reason of their positions at the royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the authors and the editor are exceptionally qualified to write a really practical, comprehensive, and up-to-date book covering all phases of gardening, for their joint knowledge of gardening matters is unique and essentially practical. A glance through the pages of the book will show how ably they have carried out their task. They have set out to write a plain, straightforward book of instruction that tells in simple language, in which technical and botanical terms are reduced to a minimum, how to plan and make a modern garden and how to maintain it. The work embodies the very latest horticultural practice, and recommends the most recently introduced and really desirable varieties of flowers, shrubs, vegetables and fruit trees; at the same time, the old favourites are still conceded the positions they deserve. Modern nomenclature and classification of many plants has called for considerable changes and rearrangment, for example, Arum Lily is no longer Richardia, it is Zantedeschia; the flowering crabs are no longer to be found under Pyrus, they are now classified under Malus, etc. etc. Such changes, although essential to an up-to-date book, can prove confusing to the gardener who persists in calling his Montbretia, Montbretia, when it is now classified as Tritonia, and so to obviate confusion we have left in both text and index cross-references from old names which have now been changed or altered in any way.
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