460 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



species which are indigenous to the locality, if they 

 possess coveted features and if they are naturally 

 variable. 



All this means, what I have already said, that 

 there should be a general improvement all along the 

 line in our native fruits, the same as there should be 

 in any other fruits ; and the greatest improvement 

 is needed in those very types which are already most 

 improved. In other words, we need more to augment 

 the amelioration of types already domesticated, than 

 we do to introduce wholly new types, although this 

 latter enterprise is also of great importance. The 

 new types may be expected to come into use as the 

 demand for them arises, and they will come in 

 gradually, and obscurely at first, as the other types 

 have come. 



The grape, in my estimation, needs the first and 

 the greatest attention. The t3 r pes which we grow are 

 yet much inferior to the Old World types. Our com- 

 mercial varieties — as the Concord, Worden, Catawba, 

 Niagara, Norton's Virginia — are generalized types, 

 and the market is now overrun with general -purpose 

 grapes. We shall soon be driven into specializations 

 in grapes, as people have been in older countries, and 

 special varieties will then be needed. Aside from 

 the further improvement of the domesticated native 

 species, we are now being driven — by the settlement 

 of the South and West— to the improvement of other 



species, like Vitis Linsecomii, Vitis <'Ii<t»ti>i>ti. and the 

 like. The second greatest need is in the development 

 of our native plum flora; the third is in the further 

 evolution of the brambles, as the raspberries, Mack- 

 berries and dewberries; the fourth is in the amalga- 



