Vlll PREFACE 



geneity of itself, and is not well adapted to mono- 

 graphic treatment. Therefore, no attempt is made to 

 discuss all the native fruits which promise useful 

 results to the cultivator. It is enough if it has been 

 shown how the leading types now cultivated have 

 come to be ; and in the prosecution of these in- 

 quiries, the book is intended as a companion to 

 "The Survival of the Unlike." 



Naturalists and experimenters have long been im- 

 pressed with the prospective importance of the great 

 number of North American plants which afford edible 

 parts or products. There is much literature on the 

 subject ; yet this writing is so fragmentary and scat- 

 tered that the present importance of our native fruits, 

 both as subjects of historical inquiry and as elements 

 in our national wealth, is not appreciated by European 

 writers. In support of this statement, I have only to 

 quote these sentences from DeCandolle's "Origin of 

 Cultivated Plants" (page 448): "A noteworthy fact is 

 the absence in some countries of indigenous cultivated 

 plants. For instance, we have none from the arctic 

 or antarctic regions, where, it is true, the floras 

 consist of but few species. The United States, in 

 spite of their vast territory, which will soon support 

 hundreds of millions of inhabitants, only yields, as 

 nutritious plants worth cultivating, the Jerusalem arti- 

 choke and the gourds. Zizania aquatica, which the 

 natives gathered wild, is a grass too inferior to our 



