vi INTRODUCTION. 



infancy, and when sufficient experience had 

 not matured the rules of practice. These have 

 become obsolete : and there are also several 

 modern publications of great merit, in which 

 science and extensive practical knowledge have 

 been united ; which have gained public ap- 

 proval and patronage ; and as these embrace 

 every branch of the fruit-grower's duty, may 

 on this account be deemed complete. But 

 such is the vast variety of garden and orchard 

 fruit, — such the diversity of circumstances 

 which aflPect the growth of the trees, the size 

 and qualities of the fruit, — and such the great 

 number of new sorts and new modes of treat- 

 ment discovered, — that no one book can pos- 

 sibly contain a moiety of the knowledge neces- 

 sary^ for a general cultivator. Nor can a com- 

 plete w^ork on the subject ever be compiled, 

 unless every man of long experience do for 

 himself and the public what the Author of the 

 following pages has endeavoured to perform. 



