AfM 



hand- 



PREFACE 



Here is a book intended to serve as a general guide 

 for leading the reader into a new field of agricul- 

 ture. When the subject has captured the imagina- 

 tion of amateurs lust of the chase will then do the 

 rest. Many hands will make light work of re- 

 search and experiment. Tree nuts are the only 

 ones described and not many kinds of these just 

 enough to cover the principles and main points of 

 nut growing. It is necessary to omit notes on hun- 

 dreds of varieties and species of nut bearing trees 

 and shrubs. Tropical nut trees bearing crops of 

 nuts for which there is a large established market 

 are interesting to people of the tropics, but this book 

 does not go so far toward the equator. Nut bearing 

 annual plants, including water plants which furnish 

 a basic food supply for many people in distant coun- 

 tries, belong to a large volume not yet written. 



One of the objects in publishing these pages at 

 this time is to present a certain simple new method 

 of grafting as promptly as possible because the ob- 

 stacle of difficult grafting has stood in the way of 

 development of the subject. A clever youth guided 

 by the instructions here given may to-day do better 

 nut tree grafting or fruit tree grafting than could 



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