THE PRINCIPLES OF FRUIT- 

 GROWING. 



COPTER I. 

 INTRODUCTORY DISCUSSION. 



FRUIT-GROWING and pomology are synonymous 

 terms. They comprise the whole art of raising 

 fruits and fruit-trees, and the applications of the 

 various sciences thereto. It is impossible to define 

 what a fruit is, in the sense in which the term is 

 universally understood in pomological writings. It is 

 best delimited by giving a list of those products 

 which are commonly known as fruits. If a defini- 

 tion were attempted of the use of the word in its 

 pomological application, it would be approximately 

 correct to say that a fruit is the edible product of 

 a woody or a tree -like plant, as of a tree, bush, or 

 vine, and which is intimately associated in its de- 

 velopment with the flower. This conception of a 

 fruit is wholly unlike the botanical idea, for the 

 botanist defines the fruit to be the ripened pericarp 

 and attachments. It should be said, however, that 

 this confusion in terminology is not the fault of 



