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The Cultivation of New Zealand Plants

Preface

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Preface.

This book is the outcome of some thirty-five years' personal experience in the cultivation of the wild plants of this country. Also during that period I have been well acquainted with nearly all the more important collections of such plants made by others throughout New Zealand. For about eleven years I grew the native species on quite a large scale in the neighbourhood of New Brighton, Canterbury, but, no matter where I have lived, there has always been in my garden a large percentage of such plants. The results of these many years' practical experience are set forth in the following pages.

Obviously the treatment is made as brief as possible; still nearly every New Zealand plant worthy of cultivation is dealt with, the number exceeding eight hundred. A special feature is a short account of the dwelling-place, or "habitat," of most of the species, a matter to which I have given special attention for many years.

I must thank most sincerely Mr. Esmond Atkinson for the beautiful drawing he has made of the crimson manuka. Also, I am deeply grateful to Messrs. D. L. Adkin, C. E. Foweraker, M.Sc., W. R. D. Oliver, W. D. Reid, and J. Crosby-Smith, for photographs. Then I must thankfully acknowledge the kindness of Messrs. D. Petrie, M.A., F.N.Z. Inst., and W. Willcox page ivfor welcome information regarding the plants growing in Auckland and Rotorua respectively. Finally, I am greatly indebted to Mr. W. H. Taylor (Department of Agriculture), who made various important suggestions concerning plants suitable for employment indoors.

L.C.

Ngaio, Wellington, 8th November, 1923.