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A

TREATISE

ON THE MANAGEMENT

OF

FRUIT TREES.

Colere Deos, Colere Agros.

By the sweat of thy brow, shalt thou earn thy food."

To the Great Society of the World, the fol lowing short Treatise is most respectfully dedicated by their Fellow Member and humble Servant.

Fellow Members,

I thought I could not dedicate this little Work, with more propriety to any, than to you; seeing it was intended for the benefit and instruction of your society. If I have failed in accomplishing that end, I hope

A

M351737

SB608 F849

AGRIC.
LIBRARY

you will be candid enough to impute it to error in judgment, and not to any impurity of design. For I assure you, I have no secret pastes, powders, potions, or plaisters to sell, for the cure of fruit trees in any disease or malady whatever. I have no darling theory to support; I have no doctrines to elucidate, by Phlogiston, Hydrogen, Carbon, Hydroguret, or any word ancient or modern, but what can be as well explained by Chrononhotonthologus, or any other word you please. I have made no experiments for the purpose of discovery; I have only attempted to follow an universal law of nature, and I was certain if I did not mistake her path, she would not lead me i

wrong.

...Self-interest and the prejudices of education, have ever been the banes of improve

ment in useful knowledge, in every depart ment of life; and horticulture has not escaped the influence. One man has trees; another has pastes, powders, potions, and plaisters to sell; a third has been bred a gardener, and must adhere to the practice he has been taught, though that should be contrary to every rule and law of nature, reason, and common sense. And it requires more than ordinary courage to differ from a common received opinion; because a man's character, (than which, nothing can be dearer to him, both his happiness as a social being, and his bread, if not independent, resting on it) is sure to suffer; as has happened in the present case; the author having been stigmatised with the grossest defamation: folly, madness, &c. by professional men, amateurs, connoiseurs, &c. He has, however, had the consolation

of being countenanced by what they are pleased to call ignorant men; that is, men of judgment, not influenced by any selfish motive, or prejudiced by being bred gardeners, or having learnt from them; for the ignorance of the one is only natural and open to conviction, whereas that of the other is taught, and completely shut to every ray of reason, and defies all the powers of Nature. So, would it be easier to convince ten thousand Indians of truth and common sense, than one fanatic in theology, physic, law, or horticulture.

Nothing can shew the power of the prejudices of education and custom, or what may be called taught or acquired ignorance, over that of natural ignorance, stronger than a practice that prevails among the medical tribe. In rolling up a taper limb, they begin at the

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