210 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
be filied. In this you cannot help us, except in so — as you give us the 
orginal stock upon which we are to work. 
It isin the development of great new races of fruits that the American 
has made immense strides a plant-breeding, and some of this breeding 
has been by means of hybridisation. How great this experiment has 
been we ourselves have not realised; but it is certainly beyond contra- 
diction to say that the last fifty years have produced greater results in the 
breeding of fruits in America than has ever been witnessed in the sama 
length of time. These experiments have been on so large a scale, and 
the results have been so far-reaching, that they almost eclipse the many 
attempts at the production in this country of mere hybrid plants. 
Our fruit growing may be said to be endemic. The European type of 
Grape (Vitis vinifera) is grown in California and some other places; but 
the Grape interest of the larger part of North America is developed from 
our native species. Great numbers of the varieties are hybrids, some of 
them between the native species themselves and others between the 
natives and the European or Wine-grape stock. Many of these hybridisa- 
tions were undesigned, but there are notable exceptions. » Several 
experimenters have made direct attempts at the amalgamation of the 
species, and each one has had a distinct and personal ideal. The 
eastern hybridists have sought to introduce the Wine-grape blood into the 
native stock. Of such are Rogers, Haskell, and Ricketts. Some of 
Rogers’ hybrids are now amateur and commercial Grapes of high stand- 
ing, as the ‘Agawam,’ ‘Lindley,’ ‘Salem,’ ‘ Wilder,’ and ‘ Barry.’ 
The western hybridists have sought a closer amalgamation of native 
species and varieties, although most of them have used more or less 
dilute Wine-grape blood. Jacob Moore has produced the ‘ Diamond,’ a 
Grape of much importance and promise. Rommel and Jeger and 
Munson have worked with the species of the mid-continental region ; and 
Munson, in particular, has bred with the excellent and variable Vitis 
Linsecomi of the post-Oak regions of the south-west. Wylie has 
attempted the amalgamation of the southern Muscadine (Vitis rotwndi- 
folia) with the northern types. Waugh has estimated that 42 per cent. 
of our varieties of native Grapes are hybrids or crosses. There are 
certainly more than twenty native species or varieties of Vitis in the United 
States, and several of them will unite to produce the Grapes of the future. 
While the Grape has been the most prolific field of hybridisation 
experience in the western world, it is difficult to say what fruit occupies 
the second place in this respect. The most marked departures have 
occurred in the Plums, but the results are not yet of such commanding 
commercial importance. The European type of Plum thrives from the 
northern Allegheny region to the Atlantic, along the Great Lakes, and 
on the Pacific slope; but in the wide continental plain and in the South 
it finds only a precarious existence. In this great region there are 
several native species of Plums, and two or three hundred cultivated and 
named varieties have already arisen from them. Many of these varieties 
are of hybrid origin. In fact, there is a whole class of hybrid Plums 
which is so unique that the group has been described as a species, 
Prunus hortulana. To this class belongs the ‘ Wild Goose Plum,’ which 
is a staple variety in the interior country. ‘The Japanese Plums (Prunus 
