248 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE, [xil. 



own point of view, I cannot escape the coii\ ii-iioii that 

 the common, staple or commercial varieties uie not 

 always the best for the fruit grower. If this is true, 

 then the remedy is education for the grower, that he 

 may select the varieties which are best for his pur- 

 poses and conditions ; but this education, it seems to 

 me, should at least be fostered by the nurseryman, 

 inasmuch as his ultimate success is determined by the 

 success or profitableness of fruit-growing. 



It is a common notion that we already have too 

 many varieties of fruits, but I think that it is nearer 

 the truth to say that we have too few, or, at least, 

 that we grow them with too little discrimination as to 

 their uses and the soils and places to which they juv 

 adapted. At the World's Fair meeting of this asso- 

 ciation, I presented a paper upon "Horticultural (io- 

 ogi-aphy" (Essay XVI,), in which I tried to point out 

 that the collection of fruits at the Exposition showed 

 that every well-marked geographical region soon 

 comes to have a type of varieties of its own, and I 

 endeavored to prove that the wholesale growing of 

 many ill-sorted varieties by any one nursery, ntnl 

 the indiscriminate dissemination of them over the 

 country, is opposed to the best experience in older 

 countries, and to the best science. Every well- 

 informed fruit grower knows that varieties which are 

 worthless with him may be valuable to one of his 

 neighbors, and the experinieiil station reports upon 

 new varieties show a reniark.iltle diversity of opinion. 

 These facts mean that vaiiitirs have local adaptations, 

 and that the best fruit grower, other thiii«is l)eiiig the 

 same, is the one who most clearly diseerus the adapt- 

 ability of varieties to his own conditions. As coun- 



