The commercial interests have so continuously and completely held the horticultural stage in America during the last two decades that it has been impossible for amateur horticulture to get in a word edgewise. Any public speaker or writer has had to talk about several acres at a time or he would not be listened to. He has been obliged to insist that his scheme would pay on a commercial scale before anyone would hear, much less consider, what he had to tell.

But now a change is coming. Different conditions are already upon us. A thousand signs indicate the new era. With hundreds—yes thousands—of men and women now horticulture is an avocation, a pastime. They grow trees largely for the pleasure of it; and their gardens are built amidst surroundings which would make commercial pomology laugh at itself.

And so I undertake to offer the first American fruit book in a quarter century which can boldly declare its independence of the professional element in fruit growing. I am confident that dwarf fruit trees have some commercial possibilities, but they are of far greater importance to the small householder, the owner of the private "estate," the village dweller, the suburbanite and the commuter.

In other words, while I hope that all good people will be interested in dwarf fruit trees and that some of them will share the enthusiasm of which this book is begotten, I do not want anyone to think that I have issued any guaranty, expressed or implied, that dwarf trees will open a paying commercial enterprise. Because the argument that a thing pays has been so long the only recommendation offered for any horticultural scheme, many persons have formed the habit of assuming that every sort of praise stands on this one foundation.

F. A. Waugh.

Massachusetts Agricultural College, 1906.