

PREFACE 



Twenty-five years ago I published a small book under the 

 title, A Laboratory Manual in Systematic Pomology. The book 

 was primitive in treatment and incomplete in material. It could 

 hardly have been otherwise, for at that time there was no ac- 

 cumulated experience in teaching systematic pomology, and few 

 fruits had been fully described either in species or varieties. 

 Through this attempt I came to realize the need of a text for 

 pomological students which would classify, arrange, and fully 

 describe American pomological material, and I conceived the 

 plan of writing such a book. As the years have passed, this 

 plan has been kept in mind; meanwhile opportunity has come 

 to study hardy fruits in many parts of the United States and 

 Canada, and to describe, as they grow on the grounds of the 

 New York Agricultural Experiment Station, nearlj^ every hardy 

 fruit to be found in North America. Now, from this fuller 

 knowledge I oifer my second book on systematic pomology. 



The present book, it will be found, is based on the several 

 books published hy the State of New York on apples, pears, 

 peaches, plums, cherries, grapes, and one in preparation on 

 small-fruits, all of which, with the exception of the work on 

 apples, have been written under my supervision. Much of the 

 material comes even more directly from my Cyclopedia of Hardy 

 Fruits, published by The INIacmillan Company. All of these 

 books, except the Cyclopedia, are difficult to obtain, and all are 

 too bulky in size and character to be used for school and college 

 text-books for which the work in hand is chiefly intended. 

 There is, however, much that is new in this text, and the mate- 

 rial taken from the larger books has been put in simpler and 

 briefer form and has been more suitably arranged for classroom 

 work. 



Perhaps the chief innovation in this book, as compared witli 

 the larger works mentioned, is the introduction of simple keys 

 to varieties of the tree-fruits and the grape. These keys should 



