PREFACE. 



All patriots may realize a sense of pride, wlieii they 

 consider the capabilities of the glorious country in which 

 we are favored to live ; and while fostering no sectional 

 feelings, nor pleading any local interests, yet, as Americans 

 and as men, we may be allowed to love our own homes, 

 our own neighborhoods, our States and regions ; and we 

 may be permitted to think them the brightest and best 

 portions of the great Republic to which we all belong. 

 Therefore the writer asks to be excused for expressing a 

 preference for his own favored Northwest, and while claim- 

 ing all praise for this noble expanse, he wishes still to be 

 acknowledged as most devotedly an American Citizen, 

 who feels the deepest interest in the prosperity of the 

 whole country. 



His fellow-laborers in the extensive field of Horticul- 

 ture, who are scattered over the great Northwest, having 

 called upon him for a work on fruits which should be 

 adapted to their wants, the author has for several years 

 devoted himself to the task of collecting matei'ials from 

 which he is preparing a work upon American Pomology^ 

 of which this is to be the first volume. 



The title has been adopted as the most appropriate, be- 

 cause the book is intended to be truly American in its 

 character, and, though it may be especially adapted to the 

 wants of the Western States, great pains have been taken 



