X. 



ON THE SUPPOSED CORRELATIONS OF 

 QUALITY IN FRUITS." 



High quality in fruits is supposed to exist at the 

 expense of some other character ; the best fruits are 

 thought to be tender in tree, unproductive, to lack 

 vigor, or to be small or dull in color. This notion is 

 so old that I am unable to find its origin. It is one 

 of the dogmas of horticulture which passes down from 

 generation to generation unchallenged. It finds 

 expression in many of our phrases, as "large and 

 poor," "handsome but poor," and the like, and it is 

 the parent of the assumption that a first-rate market 

 fruit is almost necessarily one that is indifferent or poor 

 in quality. This idea is so prevalent that it demands 

 careful investigation, now that we are entering upon 

 an era of scientific horticulture. It lies at the founda- 

 tion of all advance in horticulture, for if variation in 

 quality is always correlated with variation in some 

 other character, we should be able to breed directly for 

 quality by choosing parents which have a given com- 

 bination of characters. We shall take seeds, for in- 

 stance, from the tenderest tree, the least productive one, 

 the smallest fruit or the one producing fewest seeds. 



» Read before the Biological Section of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, Rochester, August, 1892. Printed in Agricultural 

 Science, vi. 489 (November, 1892). 



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