INTRODUCTION. 
We live in a progressive age, when knowledge is 
greatly increased, and the mental horizon widened by 
the researches and observations of experimenters in hor- 
ticulture, as in every other pursuit. Improvement in 
quince culture has been remarkably slow, yet, on the 
whole, has certainly attained to an encouraging state of 
progress. The markets of the country are beginning to 
be fairly supplied with this fruit, where but a few years 
ago it was very scarce. 
For both ornament and profit I know of no fruit that’ 
can be planted with better promise of success than the 
quince. In acity yard, or a village garden, there will be 
some spot for a tree or two; and on a farm, large or 
small, the judicious planting of this fruit will be a most 
profitable investment. The method of culture here 
described has been attended with marked success. In 
practice, the difference between success and failure often 
depends on a little thing, very easily overlooked by the 
most skilful. But as a good general organizes a victory 
out of a defeat, so will a good culturist learn by his 
failures to succeed in further trials, as by them he gets 
back to first principles. 
Quince culture is both an art and a science. One 
great reason why the cultivation of the quince has been so 
much neglected is, that it was accepted as a foregore con- 
clusion that no success was to be expected in the place 
and with the facilities at command. But now, with the 
multiplication, improvement, and cultivation well under- 
stood, and reduced to some degree of exactness, it is as 
reasonable to expect success with this as with any other 
fruit. 
(11) 
