INTRODUCTION. 



IT IS now three years since this attempt to make an annual 

 epitome of horticultural progress was first undertaken — 

 although it had been formulated some years earlier — and it 

 has at this time attained a definiteness of purpose which may 

 be assumed to indicate its true and permanent character. I 

 hope that the series possesses sufficient merit, at least in 

 prospect, to commend it to students of plants and plant- 

 cultivation. Its defects, I am aware, are great, but I trust 

 that the most profound of them are such as issue almost 

 necessarily from the vastness of any effort to summarize 

 even the salient features of American horticulture. If the 

 volumes should be found to possess no other merit, I hope 

 that they will serve a useful purpose in classifying our scat- 

 tered knowledge and in quickening the growth of a really 

 worthy American literature of horticulture. 



The kernel of the present volume is the census of cul" 

 tivated native plants, which is the first attempt to discover 

 the extent to which horticulture is indebted to our own fields 

 and woods. Studies in greater detail in this direction may 

 be expected in future volumes ; but the next investigation is 

 to be devoted to our pomological resources. 



I desire, also, to call attention to the Introduction Lists 

 of the several years, and especially in this volume in which 



