NATIVE SEEDLING FRUITS. 67 



a weak habit of growth, any tendency to disease in any form, or a 

 want of hardiness, reject it, for if j-ou breed from such a parent, 

 the chances are stronger of perpetuating its bad than its good 

 points, and the perpetuating of simply quality, with a weak habit 

 or want of hardiness, is no gain whatever. We must have hardi- 

 ness and vigor, or all the other good qualities will be rendered 

 useless. The sooner we trj' to adapt the variety of fruit to the 

 locality, not the locality to the variety, as we have been constantly 

 trying to do, the quicker we shall succeed. It is too much to 

 expect one variety of fruit to succeed everywhere, or even to 

 succeed on the different soils here, and it is rarely that we find 

 one of that description. Collins and Bakewell raised, yes founded, 

 those splendid herds of Short Horn cattle and flocks of sheep by 

 adopting the rule that like produces like, and by adapting the 

 cattle or sheep to their locality. Those cattle deteriorate when 

 fed on our pastures, but succeed on the rich pastures in the West, 

 because they are adapted to such pastures and localities. I am 

 aware that these views will not be accepted by all here, but the 

 object of this paper is to suggest ideas for discussion, and if I 

 have advanced wrong or untenable views, I shall be glad to be set 

 right. I look for most of the improvement in fruits here to the 

 influence of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The public 

 do not know it, but I am well satisfied that if this society had 

 not existed, there would not have been any of Dana's or Clapp's 

 seedling pears, or Hovey's or Wilder's seedling strawberries, for 

 the exhibitions of new fruits and the interest in them created by 

 this society caused indirectly, if not directly, the efforts of these 

 men in this direction, which have been crowned with such success. 



Marshall P. Wilder said that he had been very much pleased 

 with Mr. Moore's paper. It is such essays as this, which go to the 

 bottom of the subject, that elevate horticulture to a science. If 

 each member of the society had raised only one variety like the 

 Hubbardston Nonsuch, the country would have been flooded with 

 fine fruits. He supposed that Mr. Moore would give us au illustra- 

 tion of his method of producing seedling strawberries. Mr. Wilder 

 here exhibited two seedling plants raised by him last summer. 

 Instead of growing the plants in the greenhouse, for crossing in 

 the spring, as was formerly his -practice, he has taken up stools of 

 pistillate plants in flower, from the open ground, picking out the 

 weak blossoms, and then carrying staminate flowers to the green- 



