Hovci/s Fruits of America. 269 



and permanent — a standard for onr nomenclature. Our tour 

 to Europe was undertaken with this in view ; and our visits 

 to all the most extensive nurseries, and to the garden of the 

 London Horticultural Society, the Jardin des Plantes and the 

 Luxembourg garden, of Paris, were for the main object of 

 making ourselves acquainted with certain fruits which, for 

 years, have been cultivated under erroneous names, and erro- 

 neously described in our treatises on Pomology. 



Premature descriptions of fruits only tend to perplexity and 

 confusion : such has been the effect of too many of our works 

 on fruit. The late Mr. Manning, after the experience of 

 a quarter of a cerdury^ only began to describe the fruits which 

 he had proved and identified during that time ; and the Lon- 

 don Horticultural Society, with all the means at their com- 

 mand, described bat a few additional fruits in their Catalogue 

 for 1842, pubhshed ten years after their previous edi- 

 tion of 1832, — and this is what gives it its chief value. Fruits 

 so change, with soil, locality, and treatment, that neither one 

 nor two years will enable any individual to judge with accu- 

 racy of their true character. 



Long impressed with these ideas, we have been in no haste 

 to give the results of our investigations ; but, trusting to a due 

 appreciation of our efforts, undertaken with a view to accu- 

 racy, we have issued the first number of a Avork which, we 

 hope, will supply the desideratum so long wanted. Of its 

 merits, we shall leave cultivators to decide. 



Of some of the peculiar features of the work, we may be 

 permitted to speok. The first of these are portraits of trees 

 of such kinds as are at all peculiar in their habit of growth, — 

 for instance, the pear and apple. No pomological work has 

 ever attempted this. 



Mr. Loudon, in his great work, the Arboretum Britanni- 

 cum, has shown how important such portraits are, in identi- 

 fying ornamental trees and shrubs : but how much more val- 

 uable must they be, when brought to the aid of pomologists, 

 to enable them to detect synonyms and identify varieties ! 



A second feature is, the outline engravings, with the text. 



These will enable the cultivator, after comparing specimens of 



fruit with the colored plate, to test them further by an outline ; 



on some thin paper the form may be traced off, and t.ien the 



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