VI PREFACE 



United States Department of Agriculture, has also added 

 materially to our knowledge of the subject. 



References throughout the book indicate the extent of my 

 indebtedness to these and other investigators. In order that 

 the work may reflect as fully as possible the total knowledge 

 at present available on any topic, I have drawn freely from 

 all sources, exercising, at the same time, all possible care to 

 avoid perpetuating the more than numerous errors with which 

 the literature of tropical fruits is burdened. 



For the past seven years, during a large part of which time 

 I have traveled as Agricultural Explorer for the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, I have had exceptional oppor- 

 tunities for gathering, at first hand, information for this work. 

 In the course of my journeys I have visited Hawaii, Japan, the 

 Philippines, the Straits Settlements, India, Arabia, North 

 Africa, Mexico, Guatemala, the West Indies, and Brazil. 

 This field work has alternated with and been supplemented 

 by practical experience with the cultural problems of tropical 

 and subtropical fruit-growing in California and Florida. To 

 those familiar with the thorough and exhaustive treatises 

 which have been published on the northern fruits, however, 

 the present work will no doubt appear superficial in character. 

 Necessarily it is so. Present knowledge of the greater number 

 of tropical fruits is superficial, and many years must pass be- 

 fore it will be possible for a thoroughly comprehensive treatise 

 to be offered on any one of the species here considered, except- 

 ing possibly the date. 



I have been assisted and encouraged in the preparation of 

 this work by many persons. It is a particular pleasure to 

 acknowledge my indebtedness to Charles Fuller Baker, now 

 Dean of the College of Agriculture, University of the Philip- 

 pines, under whose guidance I first took up work in tropical 

 pomology, and whose boundless enthusiasm for tropical plants 

 has been a constant inspiration to me; to F. Franceschi, 



