16 



INTRODUCTION 



No pomologist is safe in giving didactic instruc- 

 tions about the tillage of fields with which he is 

 not personally familiar. The only value an opinion 

 ever has is its reason, and in horticulture it is im- 

 possible to attach much weight to long distance ad- 

 vice based upon hearsay statements. The farmer is 

 inevitably left to solve his own problems with such 

 aid as comparative studies may give. Fortunate 

 is he who possesses a practical acquaintance with 

 botany, physics, chemistry, climatology and ento- 

 mology, for. as these sciences are the main sources 

 of an accurate knowledge of agriculture, education 

 in them will greatly aid in simplifying the problems 

 that occur every day upon the farm. 



We have read many beautiful passages in po- 

 mological literature about the evolution of plants, 

 and how each variety, as a rule, improves itself in 

 time by going through cycles of progressive devel- 

 opment. The books are so well stocked with attract- 

 ive descriptions of evolution that it seems vulgar to 

 suggest heresy to those poetic conceptions ; yet when 

 considered from the view point of the weaker plants 

 such poetry is but meaningless words which, by their 

 artful impressions, elevate the mind above the real, 

 vital life and death struggle for plain existence that 

 is going on next the earth, where the strong proudly 

 lift their heads for a brief space over the bodies of 

 weaker ones which they have choked and smothered 

 to death. Life is common, plain and natural, and 

 it will assist every one to a proper mental balance. 



