PREFACE. 



To furnish materials for sucii a volume, the author had 

 to refer to his notes, taken during many years, while 

 serving as a member of the Fruit Committee of the Cin- 

 cinnati Horticultural Society; and to such other memo- 

 randa, from his own observation, and that of others, as he 

 had collected during the last twenty-seven years, on this 

 his favorite study. 



As the work was passing rapidly through the press, and 

 the season for planting just at hand, he had no time to 

 make such revisions and corrections as were found requi- 

 site, upon a careful examination after its publication; 

 hence the occurrence of those errors and repetitions that 

 were afterward noticed by the critics, and hyper-critics — 

 by the latter gentry with some asperity. 



Eepetitions may be pardoned, but errors should be 

 corrected ; and in the present edition, the author has 

 taken advantage of all such criticisms ; and corrections 

 have been made, so far as was practicable in stereotyped 

 text, aided by an Appendix. 



The frontispiece was engraved from a photograph pic- 

 ture, taken at an Autumnal Exhibition of the Cincinnati 

 Horticultural Society, of a few of its pomological members 

 who happened at that time to be present. The author 

 regrets that some of those represented should, from mo- 

 tives of diffidence, object to appear in it ; their labors in 

 the good cause, however, have, in a measure, made them 

 public property. 



From the large sale of this work, throughout the "West, 

 the author is gratified in the belief, that it has done some 

 good to the cause of Fruit Culture, and at least prepared 

 the way as a useful and safe pioneer, according to its 

 scope, as far as it goes, for larger, more elaborate, and 

 more perfect productions, from abler pens. 



