290 GENETICS IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE 



new varieties stood the test of years and his work served to stimulate 

 further efforts to improve the most important horticultural crop of 

 America. 



Ephraim Wales Bull produced the Concord grape as a result of 

 eleven years of patient work in crossing the native species, Vitis labrusca, 

 with European varieties, raising the seedlings and testing selections. 

 "From over 22,000 seedlings there are 21 which I consider valuable," 

 he writes. Although the hybrid nature of the Concord and other deriva- 

 tives of Vitis labrusca has been questioned, the evidence from extensive 

 tests of selfed seedlings of this and several other standard American 

 varieties as reported by Hedrick and Anthony seem to indicate that 

 they are really hybrids between American species if not between V. 

 labrusca and V. vinifera. Whatever the origin of the Concord may 

 have been, its sterling value is evidenced by its history. Introduced 

 in 1853, "ten years later the Concord grape was spread over the entire 

 northern part of the United States and is now widely used in the temperate 

 regions of most parts of the earth." Ephraim Bull's service to his 

 fellow men seems to have been all but forgotten while he was still living, 

 since "he died neglected, in poverty, broken in spirit." Vast as would 

 be the value of his contribution if it could be computed, even more 

 valuable was the inspiration he gave, "which has helped to make plant 

 breeding one of the great forces in cheaply feeding the world. 1 " 



The demands and possibilities of developing agriculture aroused 

 the ambitions of two far-sighted agriculturists Martin Hope Button 

 and Pierre Louis Franyois LeVeque de Vilmorin. A student of botany 

 from his boyhood, Sutton had already made improvements in a number 

 of plants when the Irish potato famine of 1847 drew public attention 

 to his work through the substitutes which he suggested for the devas- 

 tated potato crop. Later on the introduction of the Golden Tankard 

 mangel, the Magnum Bonum potato, and the Marrowfat pea helped to 

 establish the high reputation which the firm of Sutton and Sons came 

 to hold throughout the world. They greatly improved many flowers as 

 well as crop plants. Sutton's "Permanent Pastures" is still a standard 

 work on grasses. 



In 1843 Vilmorin took charge of the seed establishment which had 

 already passed through the hands of two generations of this remarkable 

 family. His father, Andr6 LeVeque de Vilmorin, had conducted a selec- 

 tion experiment with carrots about ten years earlier. Besides the main- 



1 The earliest hybridizers of grapes in America, according to Waugh, were Dr. 

 Wm. Valk of Long Island (1845) and John Fisk Allen of Massachusetts (1846 or '47). 

 Waugh also states that the two foremost American grape hybridists are E. S. Rogers 

 of Massachusetts, who began in 1848 and distributed many numbered seedlings for 

 trial in 1858, and T. V. Munson of Texas, who has probably added more to the prac- 

 tical American fruit list in his hybrid grapes than has any other plant breeder. 



