Adaptation to Soils. 19 
must follow that the promiscuous and wholesale dis- 
semination of a few varieties over the country must 
eventually cease, and that local and special sorts 
must constantly tend to drive out the cosmopolitan 
and general varieties. In this country, it is ouly 
in the strawberry that the peculiarities of adaptation 
of varieties to soils have begun to be well under- 
stood; and this is rather because the subject is 
forced upon the attention by the short generations 
and constantly shifting plantations of the plant than 
from any investigational motive. 
Many of our fruits are very cosmopolitan as to 
soils, although there are, probably, none of them 
which are indifferent to even comparatively minor 
variations in land. Of the temperate fruits, the apple 
undoubtedly has the most generalized adaptabilities to 
soils, and this is closely seconded by the domestic 
plum. Amongst semi-tropical fruits, the orange 
thrives upon a wide range of soils. The peach and 
grape are more exacting, and the same may be said 
of the pineapple amongst semi-tropical fruits. 
Now and then fruits are made to grow in soils 
which are uncongenial to them by working them 
upon adaptive stocks. Thus the plum may thrive 
in sandy regions when it is budded upon the peach, 
the pear is sometimes grown upon very light lands 
by working it upon the mountain ash, and the ma- 
haleb cherry is thought by most persons to be a 
better stock for strong soils than for light ones. 
We may look for the time when certain varieties 
of the same species may be selected as stocks for 
