How Domestic Varieties Originate 255 



begin to sow seed for the purpose of producing new 

 varieties ; and those seedlings which chance to possess 

 unusual merit will be propagated, and in due time intro- 

 duced. This is the history of the cultivated blackberries 

 and raspberries which have come from the wild plants in 

 little more than half a century. These fruits are now so 

 far developed that we no longer think of looking to the 

 woods and copses for new varieties of promise, yet the 

 novelties are mostly chance seedlings from cultivated 

 varieties. A few years ago a friend purchased plants of 

 the Snyder blackberry. When they came into bearing, 

 he noticed that one plant was better than the others. It 

 bore larger fruits, and the bearing season was longer. He 

 took suckers from this plant, and from these others were 

 taken, until he had a large plantation of the novelty, 

 mostly selected from plants which pleased him best. 

 The variety had such distinct merit that it was named 

 the Mersereau, in honor of the man who recognized and 

 propagated it. 



The apple. The original apple is not definitely known, 

 but it was certainly a very small and inferior crabbed 

 fruit, borne mostly in clusters. When we first find it 

 described by historians, it was still of small value. Pliny 

 said that some kinds were so sour as to take the edge off 

 a knife. But better and better seedlings continued to 

 come up about habitations, until, when printed descrip- 

 tions of fruits began to be made, three or four hundred 

 years ago, there were many named kinds in existence. 

 The size had vastly improved, and with this increase 

 came the reduction of the number of fruits in the cluster ; 

 so that, at the present time, whilst apple flowers are borne 



