Adaptation to Soils. 19 



must follow that the promiscuous and wholesale dis- 

 semination of a few varieties over the country must 

 eventually cease, and that local and special sorts 

 must constantly tend to drive out the cosmopolitan 

 and general varieties. In this country, it is only 

 in the strawberry that the peculiarities of adaptation 

 of varieties to soils have begun to be well under- 

 stood ; and this is rather because the subject is 

 forced upon the attention by the short generations 

 and constantly shifting plantations of the plant than 

 from any investigational motive. 



Many of our fruits are very cosmopolitan as to 

 soils, although there are, probably, none of them 

 which are indifferent to even comparatively minor 

 variations in land. Of the temperate fruits, the apple 

 undoubtedly has the most generalized adaptabilities to 

 soils, and this is closely seconded by the domestic 

 plum. Amongst semi-tropical fruits, the orange 

 thrives upon a wide range of soils. The peach and 

 grape are more exacting, and the same may be said 

 of the pineapple amongst semi-tropical fruits. 



Now and then fruits are made to grow in soils 

 which are uncongenial to them by working them 

 upon adaptive stocks. Thus the plum may thrive 

 in sandy regions when it is budded upon the peach, 

 the pear is sometimes grown upon very light lands 

 by working it upon the mountain ash, and the ma- 

 haleb cherry is thought by most persons to be a 

 better stock for strong soils than for light ones. 

 We may look for the time when certain varieties 

 of the same species may be selected as stocks for 



