viii Preface. 



distances and cultivated systematically with labor- 

 saving machinery. 



For these and other reasons, as well as for the 

 fact that our fruits and their manufactured products 

 are attractive and of good quality, I believe that the 

 American fruit-grower will find an increasing market 

 in Europe. But the greater the quantity sent abroad, 

 the more discriminating will that market become; and 

 it must be true that the brands and the varieties of 

 inferior quality tend to supply the inferior markets. 



But if I believe that American fruit-growing is in 

 advance of the European in its general commercial 

 aspects, I am equally convinced that the European is 

 in advance in growing for special and personal usas. 

 The narrowness of the enterprises, the competition in 

 restricted areas, the respect for traditional methods and 

 varieties, conserve the very elements which appeal 

 to the discriminating consumer, while, at the same 

 time, they develop great skill in the fruit-grower. 

 The care which is bestowed on individual plants, the 

 niceties of exposure and of training, the patient hand- 

 work, may almost be said to develop personal traits 

 in the fruits themselves. Such fruits may not find a 

 place in the open market, but for that very reason 

 they may have a higher commercial value. 



At the head of a little valley, closely shut in by 

 the Alps, is a famous apple orchard. The trees are 

 trained upright on the opposite sides of a double espa- 

 lier or trellis, the sides of which are less than two feet 

 apart. In each of these rows, the trees are two to 

 four feet asunder. These trellises are perhaps ten feet 



