Excerpt from Cyclopedia of Hardy Fruits
The purpose of this manual is to describe the varieties of hardy fruits grown in North America. A new book describing hardy fruits needs no justification. Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees and Thomas' American Fruit Culturist, in their many editions, have served two generations of fruit-growers. Both are worn out tools. Most of the varieties described by these authors are not now found in American orchards or nurseries. Many of the kinds they discuss have never been grown in this country, the descriptions published having come from European fruit-books. On the other hand, none of the varieties of this century is described in Downing or Thomas. Moreover, the descriptions of these old workers are too scant and fragmentary to have great value in modern pomology. A new manual of fruits is needed to take the place of Downing and Thomas, valuable as these books were for their day.
The plan of the book is simple. A brief glance through its pages should suffice to reveal even to the beginner in the study of pomological literature the arrangement of fruits and their varieties, and the presentation of names and synonyms. Clearness and simplicity have been sought, that the reader may with the least trouble obtain a perfect mental picture of the variety described.
The ways in which the author designs to make this manual useful are: (1) To aid in the identification of varieties. (2) To guide in the choice of varieties. (3) To sort the names now in use for varieties of hardy fruits, and assign them to the varieties to which they belong. (4) To state in what regions the varieties described grow best. (5) To tell when and where the varieties originated. (6) By depicting choice products of the orchard, to stimulate the desire to grow better fruits.
The book is written for fruit-growers, nurserymen, students in colleges and high-schools, county agricultural agents, and buyers of fruits. It is designed for those interested in fruits in general, rather than for the specialist in pomology. Specialists will find fuller discussions of nearly all of the varieties described in this manual in the fruit-books published by the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, most of them written under the direction of the author, and from which he has drawn heavily for this volume.
The chief value of a book like this lies in the accuracy of the descriptions and of the determinations of synonyms. Herein the author has had an advantage over the old pomologists, since his connection with a modern experiment station, with a large collection of fruits and a good horticultural library, has given him opportunity to describe first hand and pass impartial judgment on varieties, and to go to original sources for names; whereas, the old writers, lacking these modern facilities, were compelled to copy one from the other.
With great reluctance, the author abandons a key to varieties of the several hardy fruits. Years of patient labor have not enabled him to produce a key that will work. A variety of any fruit behaves so differently in the several great pomological regions of the continent that a key cannot be made that will be usable for a fruit in all regions. A satisfactory key to varieties of apples for New York does not fit this fruit in Virginia, Iowa, California, or Oregon. About the only constant characters of the apple for all regions of the continent are sweetness and sourness. The color of the flesh is the only constant character of the peach. There are few or no constant characters in other fruits as they grow in different regions. To arrange varieties alphabetically is unscientific, disorderly, and makes difficult the identification of fruits, but it is the author's belief that they cannot be satisfactorily arranged otherwise for a text covering more than one pomological region. Keys to varieties of fruits can be of value only when made for particular regions.
In acknowledgi. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Cyclopedia of Hardy Fruits (Classic Reprint)