12 AMBEICAX POMOLOGY. 



the trees and plants, unaided by culture, yielded food for 

 man. Those were paradisean times, the days of early in- 

 nocence, when man, created in the image of his Maker, 

 was still obedient to the divine commands ; but, after the 

 great transgression, everything was altered, the very 

 fi:round was cursed, "thorns and thistles shall it bring 

 forth to thee, and thou shalt eat of the herb of the field. 



In the .sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." From 



that day to the present hour it has been the lot of man to 

 struggle with difficulties in the cultivation of the soil, and 

 he has been driven to the necessity of constant watchful- 

 ness and care to preserve and to improve the various 

 fruits of the earth upon whicli he subsists. In the tropics, 

 it is true, there are many vegetable productions which 

 are adapted for human food, even in a state of nature, and 

 there we find less necessity for the effort of ingenuity and 

 the application of thought and labor to produce a subsist- 

 ence. Amid these productive plants of nature, the na- 

 tives of such regions lead an idle life, and seldom rise 

 above a low scale of advancement ; but in the temperate 

 regions of the globe, where the unceasing effort of the 

 inhabitants is required to procure their daily food, we find 

 the greatest development of human energies and ingenui- 

 ty — ^there man thinks, and works; there, indeed, he is 

 forced to improve the natural productions of the earth — 

 and there we shall find him progressing. As with every- 

 thing else, so it is with fruits, some of which were natur- 

 ally indifferent or even inedible, until subjected to the 

 meliorating influences of high culture, of selection, and 

 of improvement. Here we find our plants of culture, 

 which so well repay the labor and skill bestowed upon them. 



