PREFACE TO THE SIXTEENTH EDITION 

 By Thomas Rivees 



In giving the seventeenth thousand of my little book 

 to the public, I trust I may be allowed to express my 

 pleasure and gratitude for its success — perfectly un- 

 precedented in books devoted to horticulture. The 

 reception given to it by those numerous and increasing 

 horticultural amateurs who seem to love to devote their 

 leisure to the culture of fruit and fruit trees has been 

 to me a source of much pleasure. For thirty years and 

 more have I watched the growth of this taste in 

 England, and more particularly in those who garden 

 with their own hands and heads ; it is such men that 

 form the true vanguard of fruit culturists, for they 

 almost invariably improve on any suggestion given by 

 a writer ; and, if I wanted them, I could fill a volume 

 with letters from clever amateurs who have given new 

 ideas, always suggestive if not always practicable. As 

 a prominent but not new feature in this enlarged 

 edition, I may refer to the management, and above all 

 the protection, of low lateral cordon fruit trees. I 



