312 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



productiveness, with good quality of fruit and healthy foliage. The vine is of moderate 

 growth, berries and clusters medium, color rather dark brownish red. 



The Nectar, which was first called Black Delaware, by the same originator, is offered 

 for sale, but I can only report vigorous growth and healthy foliage. 



I may also mention Francis B. Hayes, by the originator of Moore's Early. The A'ine 

 is healthy, and of the Concord character, in growth much like Martha, and also m size 

 and appearance of its fruit, but ripening earlier, less foxy, and better in quality. I do 

 not think it as good, however, or as promising for general use, as the Witt grape, or 

 the Colerain, another white Concord seedling of similar character, which originated in 

 Belmont county, Ohio. 



I have perhaps pursued this subject as far as it is either desirable or profitable, at 

 this time; but contrary to the opinions I have seen recently expressed, I think our 

 most popular grapes need improvement. 



We need a grape having all the general characteristics of the Concord or the 

 Worden, with a more tenacious skin, which will bear handling and shipping with less 

 injury, with also better quality and better keeping qualities. 



We need also a Delaware, with more vigorous growth, larger fruit, and healthier 

 foliage. Or if we could have a grape like the Delaware, borne upon a vine having the 

 character of the Concord for health of foliage and adaptability to different soils and 

 locations, every grape-grower would at once recognize its immense importance. 



All these and even more can be, and I am sure will be, produced through the agency 

 of judicious and skillful crossing and hybridizing. Such improvements are necessarily 

 slow; and as experience has shown, the encouragement to the conscientious grower and 

 originator of new grapes is not large; but the work will still go on, and improvement 

 will be sure, though it may not be rapid; and out of the many that we now' have and 

 more that will surely come in the future, selections will doubtless be made that will 

 be adapted to all sections where grapes can be grown, and no place within this limit 

 need be without successful cultivators of this delightful fruit so conducive to the com- 

 fort, the health, and the happiness of mankind. 



NOMENCLATURE. 

 By John ,J. Thomas. 



An essential part of our work is the establishment of correct names for the many 

 hundred fruits which come before us for examination and for adoption. Without cor- 

 rect nomenclature, the pviblic is liable to be continually imposed upon and misled, the 

 reputation of fine varieties to be seriously damaged, their successful introduction and 

 culture retarded, and the business of the commercial fruitgrower mixed with confusion 

 and loss. Next to correctness in names is the employment of those which are appro- 

 priate and descriptive, and the rejection especially of all those which are coarse and 

 laudatory, a fault into which the originators or introducers of new varieties very often 

 fall. Pomology, which should always have the accuracy of a natural science, should 

 not allow the use of names of new fruits to degenerate into peddlers' puffing, but on 

 the contrary should l)e infinitely remote from such degradation. 



It often happens that a new fruit succeeds best in the locality of its origin, and under 

 the high culture which it receives while yet rare and new. The disseminator adopts 

 the unwise course of giving it a high-sounding name, hoping that every time it is 

 repeated in reports and catalogues, it will thus receive additional advertising without 

 cost. If it is widely disseminated, the thousands who cultivate it are thus compelled 

 to aid in praising the merits, even if it has none, every time they pronounce its name. 

 But the intended purpose of its owner is likely to be defeated, for the impression is 

 conveyed to intelligent persons that the owner distrusts the real merits of the variety, 

 and hopes to aid its doubtful character with a bombastic cognomen. Such fruits of 

 established character as the Baldwin among apples, and the Bartlett and Seckel with 

 pears, have never required any spurious aid to help them along. On the other hand, 

 the lofty title of King of the Pippins and Batchelor's Glory among apples, and Knight's 

 Monarch and Hacon's Incomparable among pears, have not given to the fruits they 

 represent a wide adoption, and some fruitgrowers have not even heard of them. Many 

 of our modern sorts of high laudation will probably be consigned to the same oblivion 

 after they have enabled the owners to make an extensive and profitable sale. 



The two leading aims which should be kept in view in giving names to fruits is to 

 select such as are appropriate and neat and compact. They may be descriptive of 

 some quality, give the place of their origin, or have the name of the originator. In the 

 names of peaches, for example, such simple and descriptive ones as Lemon Cling and 



