XXVI.] THE AMERICAN TYPES. 421 



thus arise, the pomologist selects those most pecu- 

 liarly adapted to his conditions, and thereby hastens 

 or accentuates the differences, while being very little, 

 if at all, responsible for their origin. (See Essay 

 XVIII.) 



If the gradual coming in of varieties of American 

 origin is the result of an adaptation of the species to 

 American conditions, there would seem to be the best 

 of reasons for introducing our own indigenous species 

 into cultivation, for they are already adapted to our 

 conditions. These native species may be much inferior 

 to the European type in quality of fruit, but a critical 

 study of the evolution of our fruits will indicate, I 

 think, that it is easier, on the whole, to improve a 

 variable type already adapted to our soil, climate and 

 other conditions, than to permanently succeed with a 

 highly ameliorated type which is not adapted to our 

 circumstances of environment. These native plums of 

 the woods and hedge -rows early attracted the atten- 

 tion of the colonists. William Wood wrote about 

 1630 concerning New England, saying that "the 

 plumbs of the country be better for plumbs than the 

 cherries be for cherries. They be black and yellow ; 

 about the bigness of damsons ; of a reasonable good 

 taste." M'Mahon recommends the Chickasaw plum in 

 his list of select fruits in 1806. The first distinct 

 variety of any native plum to be named and propa- 

 gated appears to have been the one which we now 

 know as the Miner. The seed which produced this 

 plum was planted by William Dodd, an officer under 

 Jackson, in Knox county, Tennessee, in 1814. Dodd 

 appears to have had two batches of seed, one which 

 he gathered the year before upon Tallapoosa creek, and 



