440 



THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



The capacity for improvement, however, of the American 

 persimmon by cultivation is beyond question. Fifteen years ago 

 I had some correspondence with the poet Bryant (whose zeal as 

 a cultivator, and whose interest in fruit-growing were almost as 

 great as his poetic enthusiasm) on the subject of the improve- 

 ment of our native fruits by high cultivation. Mr. Bryant often 

 insisted that the time would come when this would become one 

 of the popular and marketable fruits of the middle states. He 

 gathered specimens and varieties of the Diospyros Virginiana 

 from all parts of the South and West, and cultivated them most 

 carefully, and his pleasant old home at Roslyn will doubtless 



Fig. 121. A wild persimmon. Natural size. 



show to-day some relics of his ingenious care in the laying oul 

 and arrangement of his experimental plantations. 



Mr. Bryant decided, alter many years of experiment with the 

 persimmon, that the finest and most vigorous varieties were those 

 grown in the alluvial meadows of southern Indiana; and he Ben1 



me some specimens, from one of which, by high fertilization ami 



root-pruning, I have from year to year gathered fruit of greatly 

 improved si/.e ami flavor. 1 enclose a rude sketch (Fig. 122 of 



one specimen of this year's fruit from one of the trees received 



from Mr. Bryant. The smaller drawing (Pig. 121) shows the wild 



fruit, which has received no special care, gathered from another 



tree. 



A< I have already said, the astringency of the fruit is much 

 diminished by cultivation, while the flavor is improved; and, as 



