PREFACE. 



OCCUPIED as I have been for the past thirty 

 years in the cultivation and sale of fruit and or- 

 namental trees and shrubs, it is but natural that 

 I should receive numerous inquiries as to vari- 

 eties, their selection, and their culture. There 

 are many books to which reference might be 

 made, some of which are of marked excellence. 

 Downing's " Encyclopedia of Fruits " is an en- 

 during monument to the memory of the late 

 Charles Downing and his brother Andrew J. 

 Downing, who initiated the work. Few men 

 would be willing, had they the ability, to give 

 such careful, patient, and exhaustive descrip- 

 tions of every known variety of fruits, as may 

 here be found portrayed with disinterested faith- 

 fulness. But this is a book for the professed 

 horticulturist and orchardist. More practical 

 treatises have been written by J. J. Thomas, P. 



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