HORTICULTURE 



HORTICULTURE 



1509 



and Mary Elizabeth Parson's "Wild Flowers of Cali- 

 fornia," and such pamphlets as Lyon's "Gardening in 

 California" and Krause's "Sweet Pea Review" have a 

 real historial value. Prominent among our notable 

 books are Kellogg's "Forest Trees," his "West Ameri- 

 can Oaks," and Green's "Flora Franciscana." Later 

 is Jepson's "Flora of Western Middle California," 

 1901, with a second edition in 1911. He is now prepar- 

 ing a "Flora of California," several parts of which have 

 been issued. 



Native species of fruits and vegetables. 



Before passing to a discussion of the departments or 

 subdivisions of the subject, we may pause to consider 

 the general contribution that the North American con- 

 tinent has made to the species of food-plants of a 

 horticultural character. The remarks are taken from 

 Hedrick (presidential address, Society of Horticultural 

 Science, 1913), who has presented an excellent running 

 summary: "The continent is a natural orchard. More 

 than 200 species of tree, bush, vine and small fruits 

 were commonly used by the aborigines for food, not 

 counting nuts, those occasionally used, and numerous 

 rarities. In its plums, grapes, raspberries, blackberries, 

 dewberries, cranberries and gooseberries North America 

 has already given the world a great variety of new fruits. 

 There are now under cultivation 11 American species 

 of plums, of which there are 433 pure-bred and 155 

 hybrid varieties; 15 species of American grapes with 

 404 pure and 790 hybrid varieties; 4 species of rasp- 

 berries with 280 varieties; 6 species of blackberries 

 with 86 varieties; 5 species of dewberries with 23 varie- 

 ties; 2 species of cranberries with 60 varieties and 2 

 gooseberries with 35 varieties. Here are 45 species of 

 American fruits with 2,226 varieties, domesticated 

 within approximately a half-century. 



"Few plants grow under such varied conditions as 

 pur wild grapes. Not all have been brought under sub- 

 jugation, though nearly all have horticultural possi- 

 bilities. It is certain that some grape can be grown hi 

 every agricultural region of the United States. The 

 blueberry and huckleberry, finest of fruits, and now the 

 most valuable American wild fruits, the crops bringing 

 several millions of dollars annually, are not yet domesti- 

 cated. Coville has demonstrated that the blueberry 

 can be cultivated. [See Blueberry, Vol. I, p. 515.] 

 Some time we should have numerous varieties of the 

 several blueberries and huckleberries to enrich pine 

 plains, mountain tracts, swamps and waste lands that 

 otherwise are all but worthless. A score or more native 

 species of gooseberries and currants can be domesti- 

 cated and should some time extend the culture of these 

 fruits from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle. 

 There are many forms of juneberries widely distributed 

 in the United States and Canada, from which several 

 varieties are now cultivated. The elderberry is repre- 

 sented by a dozen or more cultivated varieties, one of 

 which, brought to my attention the past season, pro- 

 duced a half hundred enormous clusters, a single clus- 

 ter being made up of 2,208 berries, each ^ inch in 

 diameter. 



"These are but a few of the fruits others which can 

 only -be named are: the anonas and their kin from Flor- 

 ida; the native crab-apples and thorn-apples; the wine- 

 berry, the buffalo-berry and several wild cherries; the 

 cloud-berry, prized in Labrador; the crow-berry of cold 

 and Arctic America; the high-bush cranberry; native 

 mulberries; opuntias and other cacti for the deserts; 

 the paw-paw, the persimmon, and the well-known and 

 much-used salal and salmon berries of the West and 

 North. 



"The pecan, the chestnut and the hickory-nut are 

 the only native nuts domesticated, but some time 

 forest and waste places can be planted not only to the 

 nuts named, but to improved varieties of acorns, beech- 

 nuts, butternuts, filberts, hazels, chinquapins and nut- 



pines, to utilize waste lands, to diversify diet and to 

 furnish articles of food that can be shipped long dis- 

 tances and be kept from year to year. The fad of 

 today which substitutes nuts for meat may become a 

 necessity tomorrow. Meanwhile it is interesting to note 

 that the pecan has become within a few decades so 

 important a crop that optimistic growers predict in 

 another half-century that pecan groves will be second 

 only to the cotton-fields in the South. A recent bulle- 

 tin from the United States Department of Agriculture 

 describes sixty-seven varieties, of which more than 

 1,500,000 trees have been planted." 



"There are a number of native vegetables worth cul- 

 tivating. The native beans and teparies in the semi- 

 arid- and subtropical Southwest to which Freeman, 

 of the Arizona station, has called attention, grown per- 

 haps for thousands of years by the aborigines, seem 

 likely to prove timely crops for the dry-farmers of the 

 Southwest. Professor Freeman has isolated seventy 

 distinct types of these beans and teparies, suggesting 

 that many horticultural sorts may be developed from 

 his foundation stock. The ground-nut, Apios tuberosa, 

 furnished food for the French at Port Royal in 1613, 

 and the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620, and as a crop 

 for forests might again be used. There are a score or 

 more species of Physalis, or ground-cherries, native to 

 North America, several of which are promising vege- 

 tables and have been more or less used by pioneers. 

 Solanum nigrum, the nightshade, a cosmopolite of 

 America and Europe, recently much advertised under 

 several misleading names, and its congener, Solanum 

 triflorum, both really wild tomatoes, are worthy of cul- 

 tivation and in fact are readily yielding to improve- 

 ment. Amaranthus retroflexus, one of the common pig- 

 weeds of gardens, according to Watson, is cultivated 

 for its seeds by the Arizona Indians. In China and 

 Japan the corms or tubers of a species of Sagittaria are 

 commonly sold for food. There are several American 

 species, one of which at least was used wherever found 

 by the Indians, and under the name arrowhead, swan 

 potato and swamp potato has given welcome sustenance 

 to pioneers. Our native lotus, a species of Nelumbo, 

 was much prized by the aborigines, seeds, roots and 

 stalks being eaten. Sagittaria and Nelumbo furnish 

 starting-points for valuable food-plants for countless 

 numbers of acres of water-covered marshes when the 

 need to utilize these now waste-places becomes 

 pressing." 



Early general writings. 



The progress of horticulture may be traced in the 

 books devoted to the subject. The earliest writings did 

 not separate horticulture from agriculture. 



It is difficult to determine the first North American 

 book on agriculture. In 1710 "The Husbandman's 

 Guide" was printed in Boston "by John Allen, for 

 Eleazar Phillips." It is a small 12mo of 107 pages, in 

 four parts. The first part contains "Many Excellent 

 Rules for Setting and Planting of Orchards, Gardens 

 and Woods, the times to Sow Corn, and all other sorts 

 of Seeds." A second edition was "printed for & sold 

 by Elea. Phillips Book-seller, in Boston, 1712." It is 

 usual to begin the history of indigenous American 

 book literature on agriculture with Jared Eliot, but the 

 beginnings should have a special search. The preface 

 to Eliot seems to indicate that he knew no writings 

 applicable to North America. The "Essays upon Field- 

 Husbandry," by Rev. Jared Eliot, of Killingworth, 

 Connecticut, grandson of the famous apostle Eliot, were 

 begun in 1748 and completed in 1759. (See "Cyclopedia 

 of American Agriculture," Vol. IV, pp. 568, 569.) "There 

 are sundry books on husbandry wrote in England," 

 said Eliot, in his preface. "Having read all on that 

 subject I could obtain; yet such is the difference of 

 climate and Method of Management between then and 

 us, arising from Causes that must make them always 



