452 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



were often pressed for food. It was but natural that, 

 as the wild areas of the fruits became restricted, at- 

 tempts should have been made to grow the plants. 



The minor small fruits which have recently come 

 into notice from the West have been impressed into 

 domestication chiefly because of the comparative 

 scarcity of domestic fruits in the regions from whence 

 they come. Some of these are the buffalo -berry, the 

 dwarf juneberry, the Crandall currant type, and the 

 dwarf cherries and dwarf plums. 



Whereas the fact has been that the reigning types 

 of improved native fruits have come into cultivation 

 largely as a result of the force of conditions rather 

 than as a direct or designed choice on the part of 

 men, it nevertheless does not follow that intelligent 

 choice of species has not played an important part in 

 the evolution, and that it may not count for much 

 more in the years to come. Yet the student should 

 bear in mind the fact that all the most needful types 

 of native fruits have now been impressed into cultiva- 

 tion, and that those which yet remain in an almost 

 wholly untutored condition, as many of the nuts, 

 the elderberries, the asimina, and others will come 

 into cultivation, if at all, only through the expendi- 

 ture of great effort to make their merits and possi- 

 bilities known. From now on, the attempt to intro- 

 duce new types of native fruits must be, broadly 

 speaking, a forced effort. But if this is true, it does 

 not follow that our efforts at amelioration should 

 cease, but rather that the most promising and the 

 most useful expenditure of energy is to be found in 

 still further improving the species which are already 

 thoroughly established in cultivation, for none of 



