14 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the country. Tlie subject suggested by your Committee is the 

 work which is phiced in my official cliarge as chief of the Pomolog- 

 ical Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, and 

 as I understand it, this is to be suggestive of a discussion of the 

 subject in general at this time. I do so with the more pleasure as 

 I feel sure that ideas will be advanced and criticisms made which 

 will doubtless result in good to the cause of Pomology. It is not 

 necessary that my paper should be long, but rather that I merely 

 touch upon some of the leading thoughts in connection with the 

 work. 



It is but little more than four years since the establishment of 

 this Division and the appropriations for its use have thus far been 

 so very small that it has not been possible fulh' to execute many 

 plans begun, nor prudent to inaugurate others that I have long 

 had in mind. The original purpose of its institution and organi- 

 zation was to do work that cannot in the nature of things be done by 

 the pomological and horticultural societies of the country ; and this 

 has been closely followed. It is our constant effort to supplement 

 and assist wherever and whenever possible and thus further the 

 good cause which ennobles manhood, elevates our purposes and 

 makes more delightful the realities of every day life. The good 

 done to the world by Mr. Ephraim W. Bull, of your State, in 

 placing before the public the Concord grape, will never be more 

 than slightly appreciated. It has not only made that variety 

 plentiful and cheap in the markets but it has brought the high- 

 priced and higher flavored Delaware and Catawba within the reach 

 of the huml)lest daily laborer who toils in the factory or at the 

 forge. If the Pomological Division can be the means of bringing 

 from obscurity some fruit of even less value than the Concord 

 grape it certainly will not have existed in vain. 



Among the things that we are trying to do is the investigation of 

 the wild fruits. No part of either temperate zone is so richly 

 endowed by nature with wild fruits of such intrinsic value and so 

 susceptible of improvement as the United States, and yet we have 

 only begun their improvement. Thr cultivation of only four of 

 the twenty-live species of our wild grapes has been attempted and 

 this in a limited degree. 



For three years past Professor T. V. Munsou, of Denisou, 

 Texas, has been working in conjunction with the Division in 

 preparing a monograph which shall cover the entire genus Vitis, as 



