PREFACE 



i 16 9o-jei x*^ 



HAVING waited a long while, in the hope that some 

 one better qualified for the work, might be induced to 

 furnish the fruit-cultivators of Interior New England 

 with a treatise such as their local wants demand, I 

 have at length ventured upon the undertaking myself. 



A book of this kind is so greatly needed, to guide the 

 operations of a large and increasing class of our citizens 

 that even comparative incompetency may not have labor- 

 ed upon it in vain. 



If there are pears which ripen finely at Saltm, but 

 will not succeed in Boston ; if the climates of Western 

 New York and the shores of the Hudson differ so widely, 

 as to affect the quality of several varieties of different 

 species of fruits, one might easily infer what it has cost 

 the writer something to learn that whoever would suc- 

 ceed with fruit-trees, in the hill-country of the eastern 

 states, may rely with tolerable safety upon the uncertain 

 testimony cf his own neighborhood, while the profoundest 

 wisdom that has ever recorded the experience of other 

 countries, would only mislead and bewilder. 



I have endeavored to make my book what its title in- 

 dicates. My Lists of Fruits have been carefully prepar- 



