PREFACE 



The Eighth Edition of this treatise outstripped its im- 

 mediate predecessors in meeting a public demand which 

 covered the available supply much sooner than antici- 

 pated. Because of the desirability of keeping the work 

 abreast of the progress of a constantly changing and 

 developing industry, the publishers have assumed the 

 burden of resetting the type for each edition, resisting 

 the temptation of greater profit which would attend re- 

 printing from plates with minimum revision. There- 

 fore this edition is wholly set anew the ninth op- 

 portunity for free revision which the writer has enjoyed 

 during the publication of the work, which has reached a 

 total of twenty-five thousand copies since the appearance 

 of the first edition in 1889. 



Of the quality of the book, it does not become the writer 

 to speak, but he may express his satisfaction at its popu- 

 larity. Its circulation may be cited as a testimonial of its 

 suitability for service in the building up of the fruit in- 

 dustries, and the demand for it may be regarded as rather 

 unique, when it is remembered that the book deals exclu- 

 sively with the fruit growing of a single State which is 

 only one, although it be the greatest, of the agricultural 

 interests of that State. The demand for the book is an 

 exponent of the continued activity in California fruit 

 planting, and its sale abroad indicates the fact that the 

 outside world is watching California's fruit development, 

 and desires to know the methods by which a product 

 which brought to growers a return of $236,955,000 in 

 1920 a figure, of course, much below its commercial 

 valuation. 



The writer repeats the request which he has made in 

 earlier editions that all readers whose observation and 

 work teach them any better way than he has described in 

 this book shall share with him the advantages of such 

 greater wisdom. 



EDWARD J. WICKSON. 



University of California, 



Berkeley, September, 1921. 



4G9831 



