NEW HORTICULTURAL CROPS FOR FOOD SUPPLY 00 



varieties; 6 species of blackberries with 86 varieties; 5 species of 

 dewberries with 23 varieties; 2 species of cranberries with 60 

 varieties and 2 gooseberries with 35 varieties. Here are 45 species 

 of American fruits with 2,226 varieties, domesticated within ap- 

 proximately a half century. De Candolle named none of them. 

 The final note of exultation at this really magnificent achievement 

 of American horticulture would typically be uttered in a boast 

 as to the number of millions of dollars these fruits bring fruit- 

 growers each year, but science is not sordid and has not made the 

 calculation. 



What more can be done? The possibilities of the fruits named 

 have by no means been exhausted. The fruit of the wild plum, 

 Prunus maritima, an inhabitant of sea-beaches and dunes from 

 Maine to the Carolinas, is a common article of trade in the region 

 in which it grows, but notwithstanding the fact that it readily 

 breaks into innumerable forms and is a most promising subject 

 under hybridization, practically nothing has yet been done toward 

 domesticating it. Few plants grow under such varied conditions 

 as our wild grapes. Not all have been brought under subjugation, 

 though nearly all have horticultural possibilities. It is certain 

 that some grape can be grown in every agricultural region of the 

 United States. The blueberry and huckleberry, finest of fruits, 

 and now the most valuable American wild fruits, the crops bringing 

 several millions of dollars annually, are not yet domesticated. 

 Coville has demonstrated that the blueberry can be cultivated. 

 Some time we should have numerous varieties of the several 

 blueberries and huckleberries to enrich pine plains, mountain 

 tracts, swamps and waste lands that otherwise are all but worthless. 

 A score or more native species of gooseberries and currants can be 

 domesticated and should some time extend the culture of these 

 fruits from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Circle. There are 

 many forms of juneberries widely distributed in the United States 

 and Canada, from which several varieties are now cultivated. The 

 elderberry is represented by a dozen or more cultivated varieties, 

 one of which, brought to my attention the past season, produced 

 a half hundred enormous clusters, a single cluster being made up 

 of 2,208 berries, each a third of an inch in diameter. 



These are but a few of the fruits — others which can only be 



