viii 



PREFACE. 



In all books upon gardening a great variety of modes of operating are com- 

 prehended, each of which has, it may be supposed, its own peculiar merit under 

 particular circumstances. In several the very same mode is repeatedly recom- 

 mended, with slight variations of phraseology, in speaking of many different 

 subjects ; and it has at last become a common complaint, among those who seek 

 for information from books upon horticultural subjects, that they can find plenty 

 of rules of action, but very few reasons. 



" No greater boon could be bestowed upon the gardening world than to reduce 

 all horticultural operations to their first principles, and to lay bare the naked 

 causes why in one case one mode of procedure is advisable, and another in 

 another. But there are few persons who are competent to undertake this task ; 

 it requires a combination of great physiological knowledge, with a perfect ac- 

 quaintance with the common manipulation of the gardener's art, and much 

 experience in ail the little accidents which are scarcely appreciable by the most 

 observing cultivator, with which the mere man of science can necessarily have 

 no acquaintance, but upon which the success of a gardener's operations often 

 mainly depends ; which are to the cultivator signs as certain of the issue of his 

 experiments, as to the mariner are the almost invisible changes in the appearance 

 of the heavens by which the weather is prognosticated. 



" Deeply impressed with a persuasion of the justice of the foregoing observa- 

 tions, and sincerely regretting that there should be no present expectation of 

 such a task being undertaken by any one fully competent to it, the Editor of 

 this work ventures to throw himself upon the indulgence of the public by at- 

 tempting, not to carry into effect such a plan. himself, but to sketch out, in regard 

 to the Fruit Garden, what he thinks the method should be upon which a more 

 competent person would do well to proceed. 



" All our fruits, without exception, have been so much ameliorated by one cir- 

 cumstance or another, that they no longer bear any resemblance in respect of 

 qu^ality to their original. Who, for instance, would recognise the wild parent of 

 the Coe's or Green Gage- Plum in the savage Sloe, or that of the Ribston and 

 Golden Pippin Apples in the worthless acid Crab 1 Or what resemblance can 

 now be traced between the delicious Beurr6 Pears, whose flesh is so succu- 

 lent, rich, and melting, and that hard, stony, astringent fruit, which even birds 

 and animals refuse to eat? Yet these are undoubted cases of improvement re- 

 sulting from time and skill patiently and constantly in action. The constant 

 dropping of water will not more surely wear away the hardest stone, than will 

 the reason of man in time compel all nature to become subservient to his wants 

 or wishes. But it would be of little service to mankind that the quality of any 

 fruit should be improved, unless we found some efficient and certain mode of 

 multiplying the individuals when obtained. Hence there are two great con- 

 siderations to which it is. above all things, necessary that the attention of the 

 cultivator should be directed, viz. Amelioration and Peopagation. 



" Amelioration consists either in acquiring new and improved varieties of fruit, 

 or in increasing their good qualities when acquired. It will be as well to con- 

 sider these two subjects separately. 



" By what means the first tendency to change their nature was given to da- 

 mesticated plants, we are entirely ignorant. It is probable that it was originally 

 due to accident, and also that it was still mere chance which continued to ope- 

 rate down to very modern times. Philosophers are unacquainted with the reason 

 why there should be any tendency to variation from the characters first stamped 

 on any species by Nature; but all know that this tendency does exist, and in a 

 most remarkable degree in many species. There is in all beings a disposition to 

 deviate from their original nature when cultivated, or even in a wild state ; but 

 this disposition is so strong in some as to render them particularly well adapted 

 to become subject to domestication: for instance, the dog, the pigeon, and the 

 barn-yard fowl, are cases in which this tendency is most strongly marked in 

 animals; and domesticated fruits are a parallel casein the vegetable world. 



" Without, then, vainly endeavouring to discover the first cause of this dispo- 

 sition to form varieties, let us take it as a naked fact that the disposition exists. 

 Cultivators increase this disposition chiefly in two ways; either by constantly 

 selecting the finest existing varieties for seed, or by intermixing the pollen and 

 stigma of two varieties for the purpose of procuring something of an intermediate 

 nature. The ancients were unacquainted with either of these practices, and con- 



