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3.
of great care in labelling. As regards the more important commercial fruits, it must be remembered that new varieties come onto the market from time to time. This is especially true of fruits which are relatively new, so far as commercial cultivation is concerned. The planter should pay utmost attention to this subject before he lays out his orchard.

The selection of land for planting is a matter of great importance. Many tropical horticulturists do not realise the necessity of investigating texture, structure and depth of soil; drainage requirements; irrigation; and the need of fertilizers. These subjects are treated in this book; the tropical horticulturist is urged to give them the careful study they merit.

Pruning is often neglected, especially in the first few years when the tree must be properly formed. In other instances it is overdone, largely because insufficient experience has been accumulated through practice.

This book is based largely upon work done at Lancetilla Experiment Station and the Escuela Agricola Panamericana in Honduras, and work at the Subtropical Experiment Station of the University of Florida at Homestead and the several Plant Introduction Gardens of the U.S.Department of Agriculture in Florida. Lancetilla, which has the largest collection of tropical fruits in the Americas, so far as species are concerned, was founded in 1925 by the United Fruit Company. The Subtropical Experiment Station at Homestead has the largest collection of varieties of the avocado, mango and several other fruits. Other sources of information, many of them private growers whom we would like to thank individually did space permit, have been drawn upon heavily; and it should be added that material in this book on Temperate Zone fruits in the tropics - a subject to which serious attention has only been given during the past 25 years, has been accumulated mainly in