NEW OR NOTEWORTHY FRUITS.* 



U. P. HEDRICK.** 



Without new varieties, fruit-growing would be at a standstill. 

 Old varieties are seldom improved; they are changed only when 

 nature occasionally, very occasionally, substitutes one character for 

 another, as when russet takes the place of red in the Baldwin or 

 of yellow in the Bartlett. The varieties now grown are far from 

 perfect, there being few, indeed, not more readily characterized by 

 their faults than by their virtues. There is, all can agree, still 

 much to be done in improving fruits — when nature gives us perfect 

 varieties the Millennium will have come in fruit-growing. New 

 varieties should be looked upon, then, as milestones in the march 

 of progress and he who would keep up in the march must become 

 familiar with the milestones. 



But familiarity with fruit novelties is not easily acquired. To 

 begin with, the names are often misleading, for the mid-wives of 

 horticulture have a way of christening their new-born with descrip- 

 tive terms which do not describe. Neither can the accounts of 

 introducers be taken as precise statements of merits. To catch 

 customers the introducer sets a net. The net is an illustrated cata- 

 logue baited with beautiful illustrations and alluring descriptions 

 which tempt but do not always inform. Nor can it be expected 

 in these days when novelties come from here, there and everywhere, 

 that the fruit-grower can determine for himself the merits of new 

 fruits — neither time, money nor breadth of knowledge suffices. 

 The State should test the almost numberless new varieties of fruit. 

 It is quite as much as the grower can do to try the cream of the 

 new sorts — and this he should do. 



Believing it to be the duty of the State to test new fruits, this 

 Station grows on probation all of the fruit novelties offered in this 

 country. In this bulletin we describe the best recent introductions 

 as they grow on the grounds of this Station. 



For one reason and another varieties are often lost; they pass 

 from cultivation or remain for years or forever in the limbo of 

 nurserymen's catalogues and horticultural reports. Others were 

 born to blush unseen in places or times such that their good qualities 



* Reprint of Bulletin No. 364, July, 1913; for Popular Edition, see p. 755. 



** Credit for the descriptions of fruits given herein is due Richard Wellington, Geo. 

 H. Howe, Chas. B. Tubergen, and O. M. Taylor of the Horticultural Department of 

 this Station. 



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