No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 595 



THE POMQLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNITED 

 STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



By PROF. WM. A. TAYLOR. Pomologist, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C- 



The poinological work of the Bureau of Plant Industry may be 

 roughly divided into two general lines, namely, systematic and 

 economic work, though in fact all the work thus far undertaken in 

 this field has a definite economic relation and practical bearing. 

 The term pomology, which has been variously applied by writers, 

 may perhaps be most accurately defined as the science of fruits and 

 the art of their culture. The science of fruits is largely concerned 

 with the study of their relationships to each other and the deter- 

 mination of their relative adaptability to various combinations of 

 soil and climatic conditions. Only through knowledge of these 

 points can any intelligent forecast of the probable behavior of a 

 variety in a particular region be based, and the risk of failure of 

 varieties in regions new to them be reduced. One of the most im- 

 portant requisites in systematic pomology is an accurate, clear and 

 stable nomenclature. This is necessary in order that the observa- 

 tions of widely scattered observers may be utilized in determining 

 the cultural range of varieties, and the uses to which they are best 

 adapted. In America this question of nomenclature has been and 

 still is of very great importance. Our commercial fruit industry has 

 been developed with such startling rapidity in districts so widely 

 scattered, and from native and introduced species of such diverse 

 characteristics that the workers in systematic pomology have been 

 overwhelmed in the wealth of material available for, and needing 

 their attention. In every new section successively occupied by the 

 pioneers as they have moved westward, old varieties have reap- 

 peared under new or entirely erroneous names, which, mingled with 

 those of the new sorts that have originated in the particular sec- 

 tions, have resulted in radical regional differences in the names of 

 varieties in the nurseries and orchards. 



A few familiar cases may be cited. The P.aldwin apple of New 

 England became Steele's Red Winter in Western New York, which 

 name through a mistaken identification later become firmly attached 

 to Red Canada in Michigan, where it still persists in the older 

 orchards. The Yellow Newtown of Long Island, transferred to the 

 warm and fertile mountain coves of Virginia became the Albemarle 

 Pippin of the mountain region below the Potomac River. The 

 Mumper Vandevere of Pennsylvania, grafted in Northern Illinois for 

 Yellow Newtown, became the Minkler of that State and the great 

 Mississippi Valley, and has been so widely distributed under that 

 name and so firmly fixed in pomological literature that it takes pre 

 cedenre over the earlier name of the variety; the Napoleon cherry 

 of the European lists is almost universally grown in California and 

 Oregon as Royal Ann; the Pond plum as Hungarian Prune. 



Systematic investigation of the apples grown in family orchards 

 reveals the fact that a large proportion of the varieties in them, our- 

 side of a few standard commercial sorts, are either unknown by 

 name to the growers or are incorrectly named. 



