viii Preface. 



With the exception of those courteously contributed 

 by Mr. McLeod from Assam, and Mr. Stevenson from 

 Sylhet, and those borrowed from other works, all the 

 outline drawings in the accompanying Atlas were 

 made by myself from the samples I obtained. 



I need not say that the illustrations are very poor, 

 and no doubt there is a certain amount of audacity in 

 presenting such a collection of rough drawings to the 

 public, when it is accustomed to highly-finished and 

 artistic illustrations. The question, however, in this 

 case, was not one between poverty and richness, but 

 whether the illustrations were to be such as they are, 

 or none at all. There are probably few who will not 

 admit that an outline drawing, however rough, is better 

 than nothing. It goes without saying that the draw- 

 ings of the accompanying Atlas were not intended as 

 works of art, but simply as a help to understand the 

 text ; and to intelligent persons, a rough outline of 

 anything is often as good as the most elaborately- 

 coloured picture, and far less expensive. Moreover, 

 as I had the opportunity of seeing and handling a 

 large number of forms of this most important genus 

 to man (many of which are not known, and have 

 never been seen out of the localities where they are 

 grown), I thought it of some importance to preserve 

 a record of them, however rough, for the benefit of 

 any future student of this interesting genus. At this 

 time of day it cannot any longer be said that cultivated 

 forms of fruit are of no significance to botanists. 

 There is, I believe, more science to be got out of 

 cultivated forms of plants, than was once suspected. 



The drawings were all made of natural size, but 

 owing to the expense of getting them printed of that 

 size, they had to be much reduced. I hope, however, 

 that the scale of inches given in each plate will enable 



