PROMISING NEW FRUITS. 



By WILLIAM A. TAYLOR, 

 Pomologist in Charge of Field Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In a country like the United States, which embraces so wide a range 

 of climatic and soil conditions, the origination and dissemination of 

 fruit varieties is a very important phase of economic pomology. 

 Without the origination of varieties adapted to peculiar regional con- 

 ditions, there are few sections in which profitable commercial fruit 

 culture can be permanently maintained. A considerable degree of 

 adaptability to climate, resistance to particular diseases or insects, and 

 suitability for special uses is essential to the profitable maintenance of 

 fruit plantations in the open air in most of our territory. W r hile a 

 few varieties of most cultivated fruits possess a high degree of endur- 

 ance of varying conditions, such varieties are usually of rather inferior 

 quality and not well suited to highly specialized uses. Until a suffi- 

 cient number of American-grown sorts has been accumulated our fruit 

 growers must continue to test such new sorts as give promise of meet- 

 ing their special needs. The present article of this series* calls atten- 

 tion to some of the more recently introduced varieties that appear to 

 possess distinct merit for testing in different fruit districts. 



VIRGINIA BEAUTY APPLE. 



[PLATE LVIII.] 



This excellent winter variety appears to have originated early in the 

 last century as a chance seedling on the farm of the late Mr. Zachariah 

 Saferight, now owned by Mr. C. C. Edwards, in Carroll County, Va., 

 which was then a part of Grayson County. The original tree, which 

 is still standing, is reported to have borne fruit in 1826. Soon after 

 that date the variety was disseminated throughout Carroll, Grayson, 

 Wythe, and Pulaski counties by Mr. Martin Stoneman, who used scions 

 of it for top-grafting trees in orchards on various farms. 6 Old men in 

 that region state that it was known to them as a disseminated variety in 

 their boyhood. It was first disseminated under the names " Zach/' and 



a See Yearbooks of the Department of Agriculture for 1901 (p. 381), 1902 (p. 469), 

 1903 (p. 267), and 1904 (p. 399). 



& Letters of R. M. Crockett, Pulaski, Va.; Prof. William B. Alwood, Blacksburg, 

 Va.; H. C. Wysor, Dublin, Va.; J. W. Stoneman, Cap, Va., and S. D. Stoneman, 

 Gambetta, Va., 1901-6. 



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