6 PREFACE. 



inquiring beginners with the fundamental knowledge which one 

 must possess before he can proceed satisfactorily in the cultivation 

 of apples, and to record such results of long experience as will en- 

 able any intelligent person to perform the operations required in 

 the management of orchards, or of the apples, in the best and most 

 approved manner. Hence a satisfactory answer to almost any ques- 

 tion that ,an inquirer after pomological truth touching the apple 

 may desire to have practically elucidated, may be found in some 

 one of the chapters of this little book. Reliable facts, conveyed 

 in plain and intelligible language, have moved the author's pen, 

 rather than any desire to roll out beautifully-rounded sentences to 

 please the fancy more than they would instruct an humble in- 

 quirer after truth. 



There are many thousands of young men in all parts of the coun- 

 try who need the aid that such a practical treatise on the apple 

 will furnish. The writer has endeavored to present every subject 

 in such a manner that a beginner will be able to perceive and to 

 appreciate what should be done, as well as what is not allowable. 

 Apple orchards seem to be failing for which there are plausible 

 reasons ; and we have endeavored to show intelligent beginners 

 the true causes of failure, to direct their operations in such a man- 

 ner that there shall be no such thing as a failure of the apple crop. 

 We have recorded nothing that has not been put to a practical 

 test, and found, by long experience, to be reliable. We have also 

 endeavored to encourage beginners to plant an orchard early in 

 life, and to manage the trees in such a manner that they will never 

 lack a liberal supply of good apples. 



The author has been writing more or less on fruit for thirty years 

 past ; and some of the articles have been published in the " Cul- 

 tivator " and " Country Gentleman," in the " American Agricultur- 

 ist," " New York Times," and " New York Observer," while edito- 

 rially connected with those journals ; some in " Moore's Rural New 

 Yorker " and in the " Working Fanner," all of which have been 

 reconstructed and revised. With the exception of a few small il- 

 lustrations reproduced from electrotypes taken from " Downing's 

 Fruits and Fruit-trees of America," and a few also from the " Amer- 

 ican Entomologist," through the courtesy of its publishers, the il- 

 lustrations have all been engraved by the publishers of this book. 



SERENO EDWAKDS TODD. 



Brooklyn, L. I. 



