PREFACE. 



IT is twenty-four years since this work was first published, and 

 during the first fifteen of that period it passed through three 

 large editions. The fourth appeared nine years ago, and that 

 has long since been out of print. I have now finished the Fifth 

 Edition, in which will be found a great deal of new matter, 

 enlarging the work to upwards of 150 pages more than there 

 were in the last. 



The increase in size is mainly due to the introduction of 

 additional descriptions of Fruits which are actually existing in 

 our Gardens and Orchards, as I have been desirous of putting on 

 record a description of all the fruits generally cultivated in the 

 United Kingdom so far as it was in my power to do so. I could 

 easily have increased the size of this volume if I had been so 

 disposed by introducing fruits cultivated abroad or which are 

 described in foreign works; but this would have answered no 

 useful purpose, for until these have been grown in this country 

 we can form no idea of what their merits or demerits might be. 

 Much harm has already been done and much disappointment has 

 been caused by the indiscriminate introduction and recommend- 

 ation of foreign fruits with the merits they are reputed to possess 

 in other soils and other climates. Fruits are so easily influenced 

 by these two agencies that even in this country, in localities not 

 far distant from each other, we meet with the most conflicting 

 results. In the fertile valley of the Thames about Teddington 

 and Twickenham every kind of hardy fruit might be expected to 



