390 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [XXIV. 



apple, very subject to scab, are grown only in par- 

 ticular localities, and were it not for the fact that 

 they possess superlative merits, they undoubtedly 

 would have been wholly neglected before this. The 

 White Doyenne pear has been almost entirely driven 

 out by the fruit cracking, and Flemish Beauty, but 

 for the sprays, would follow suit. I am convinced 

 that the chief causes of the failure of the Esopus 

 Spitzenburgh apple are the apple -scab and insufficient 

 fertility of soil, and the experiments in spraying 

 indicate that this good old apple can yet be grown 

 with satisfaction and profit. The decreasing popular- 

 ity of the Spitzenburgh is regarded as the chief con- 

 temporaneous example of the supposed running -out 

 of varieties ; but it is chiefly driven out by disease 

 and neglect. 



5. Do fasJiions and demands change and call for 

 neiv types f Yes : and the chief reason why many 

 of the good old dessert fruits are now unknown is 

 because our modern demands are for fruits of greater 

 productiveness, large size, beauty, good carrying 

 qualities, and ease of propagation and growth in the 

 nursery ; varieties which least satisfy these demands 

 tend to disappear. There has been no money in 

 Dyer, Jefferis and Mother apples so long as we 

 have had Baldwin and Ben Davis. The persistence 

 of varieties is determined very largely by the profit 

 there is in them, and when fashions and demands 

 change, the varieties change. 



I may say here that the merits of many of the 

 old varieties are exaggerated through rosy or unreliable 

 memories. Scarcely a season passes that some one 

 does not regret to me that the old Summer Bell and 



