188 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SCIENTIFIC AND EXPERIMENTAL. 



NEW FRUITS FROM SEED. 



The venerable Marshall P. "Wilder discourses upon the above topic in the 

 Rural New Yorker, from which we extract the following: 



The widespread interest now manifested in the production of new varieties 

 of small fruits from seed, induces me to comply with your request for an article 

 on that subject. This is the most reliable method for obtaining new varieties 

 suited to our various soils and climates, or as substitutes for those which may de- 

 cline in the future. The acquisitions which have already been obtained give 

 promise of still richer rewards to him who will work with nature in compelling 

 her to yield to his demands for still better results. She has placed in our 

 hands the requisites for this purpose, and we have only to conform to her laws 

 and we shall be sure of progress. 



The ease with which new varieties may be obtained by crossing our best sorts 

 of fruits is now pretty well understood, and there is no better illustration of 

 what can be accomplished than what has been done in' the production of the 

 numerous native fruits which have been secured since the establishment of the 

 American Pomological Society. The importance of raising new varieties from 

 seed is no longer of questionable utility. The fact that good seed of good 

 varieties will produce good offspring is a fundamental law, proofs of which are 

 seen in a multitude of instances from the results of artificial impregnation. 

 Feeble parents produce weak children — a principle as well adapted to vegetable 

 as to animal life. We have learned many of the laws which govern this most 

 interesting department of science, and the more we work with nature in efforts 

 for the improvement of our fruits the more we shall admire this most perfect 

 and beautiful law for the improvement of men, animal^ and plants. 



RAISIN GRAPES. 



The remark occasionally is made in fruit-growers' gatherings that there 

 ought to be a way out of an overcrowded grape market in the making of 

 raisins. The Rural New Yorker comments upon this subject and says the 

 raisin grapes all belong to Vitis vitiifera or the foreign class, and all the 

 varieties become hot-house grapes upon our slope of the continent. They are 

 of little value for general out-door culture here. They differ from our native 

 grapes in being larger, more meaty and of firmer pulp, which adheres more to 

 the skin and less to the seeds than in our grapes. There is no good raisin grape 

 among our native classes or their varieties. Some of our specialists are work- 

 ing in this direction, but the meaty characteristics required for a satisfactory 

 raisin grape not being found in any of our sorts, it will require many years of 

 special development to produce such a variety. 



