PLANT BRE;ii;DING. I63 



ideal type ; since, as already intimated, the necessity for a strug- 

 gle for existence has been obviated. 



The whole practice of propagating the common fruits, as 

 followed by most of the nurserymen of today, is radically wrong, 

 and tends to deterioration rather than to improvement. Buds 

 are often selected promiscuously from bearing trees, from barren 

 trees, and from nursery stock of unknown character, and as a 

 result a large proportion of the orchards all over the country 

 contain trees which do not pay the interest on the land they 

 occupy. In the horticultural world a stimulus is needed like that 

 which the Babcock test gave to the dairy world. Some result- 

 ant weeding would follow and fruit growers would rise in their 

 might and demand greater care in the production of trees. 



It is encouraging to note that a few nurserymen are awaken- 

 ing to the situation and are advertising pedigree stock ; but while 

 the signs are hopeful, the intelligent orchardist of the future 

 will be an amateur plant breeder; will set his trees of some 

 strong, vigorous stock, and will top work with the variety or 

 strain which is most desirable. 



Some Results of Breeding. 



In the foregoing notes some of the methods of plant breeding 

 as applied to fruit, and something of the history of the develop- 

 ment of the science in this country, have been given. The sig- 

 nificance of the work, and some of the results accomplished in 

 the evolution of American fruits, may properly be considered at 

 this time. 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century, almost all of the 

 cultivated fruits were of foreign origin. At present fully 90 

 per cent of the cultivated apples, and nearly as large a propor- 

 tion of the pears, are of Am.erican origin; that is, have origi- 

 nated from American seedlings. Of plums, the American seed- 

 lings of European and Japanese species, together with important 

 native types, and hybrids of these with the foreign species, are 

 rapidly assuming prominence. In the cultivation of grapes, 

 raspberries, blackberries and gooseberries, little progress was 

 made until native species were taken up and improved ; and the 

 last half century, indeed the ilast decade, has seen a most marked 

 development in all of these fruits. It is interesting to note, as 

 bearing upon the general advance in the amelioration of fruits, 



