yi ARCH, 19 1 



Gregg, the leading market variety of black rasp- 

 berry. Black raspberries are unknown in Europe, 

 but here they proved more popular than the red 



of the eighteenth century, when Linnams 

 declared that there was sex in plants. It 

 was 1848 before Nicholas Longworth of 

 Cincinnati succeeded in making the public 

 understand that there are two kinds of 

 flowers in strawberries, staminate and pistil- 

 late. Surely, some one might have inquired 

 then whether the same phenomenon does 

 not exist in all other fruits. Yet it was forty 

 years later that the experiment station work- 

 ers began a general survey which showed that 

 self-sterility occurs in apples, pears, plums, 

 grapes, etc. Was this rapid progress? Is 

 there much chance here to boast ? It looks 

 to me as if American fruit growing has been 

 on a safe basis for just about ten years! 



The most remarkable fact, however, in the 

 evolution of American fruit growing is our 

 steady progress toward the day when all 

 varieties of fruit will be of American origin 

 and perfectly adapted to American con- 

 ditions. To scientists it is all reasonably 

 clear. They see that in all new countries 

 the native fruits are generally of poor quality, 

 and pioneers inevitably import the fruits 

 of the oldest countries, since these have had 

 the longest time for improvement. But the 

 old fruits are not hardy in the new climate 

 and the settlers are forced to raise new 

 varieties from the only fruits that are hardy, 

 viz., the native ones. 



The general public, however, does not 

 realize this, and I can assure you that it is 

 a fact of vital importance to thousands of 

 families all over the United States. It is 

 absolutely impossible to grow Eastern vari- 

 eties of fruit in the cold Northwest. The 

 growers in Minnesota and the Dakotas know 

 this now, after several decades of bitter 

 experience, but amateurs who go there from 

 other states are almost sure to send "back 

 East" for fruits to plant in their own gar- 

 dens. Every year some gardener freshly 

 arrived from Europe writes me that he 

 plans to devote his life to raising European 

 grapes in America and only last week a 

 New York business man came to me for 

 advice on this same proposition. I could 

 cite many instances to show that tens of 

 thousands of dollars are hopefully spent 

 every year on nursery stock that is fore- 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



doomed to failure, simply because people 

 do not know that there are, for practical 

 purposes, nineteen climates in America, and 

 that for one cent they can get a copy of 

 Farmer's Bulletin No. 208, containing a list 

 of all the varieties recommended for each 

 section by the American Pomological Society 

 in 1904. That list is far from perfect, yet 

 if everyone would study it before planting, 

 the aggregate saving would soon run into 

 millions of dollars, to say nothing of the 

 long years of waiting that end only in 

 disappointment. 



At the risk of dullness, therefore, I shall 

 try to outline the evolution of each important 

 fruit in order to show how history is the best 

 prophet and adviser as to what we should 

 do in the future. 



EVOLUTION OF THE GRAPE 

 It took two centuries to convince the 

 Americans that we cannot grow the Euro- 

 pean, or wine, grape outdoors in the East 



Shafer, a leading variety of purple raspberry. 

 The purple canes are the most important of all 

 raspberries in America 



or South. American grape culture began 

 about 1825, when Adlum sent the Catawba 

 to Nicholas Longworth at Cincinnati. By 

 1850 Cincinnati became the first great 

 horticultural centre of America. The 

 greatest Catawba-growing region to-day is 

 that of Keuka Lake, N. Y., where the 

 industry was started about 1830. 



The first American grape of known 

 parentage was the Diana, 1843, but it was 

 not until 1853 that we have the first record 

 of the Concord, which was the "first variety 

 of sufficient hardiness, productiveness and 

 immunity from diseases to carry the culture 

 of the vine into every garden in the land." 



The first authentic hybrid between Euro- 

 pean and American grapes was Allen's 

 Hybrid, shown at Boston in 1854. The first 

 great hybridizer was Rogers who secured the 

 first of his still famous hybrids in 1856. 

 But no primary hybrids among grapes are 

 of commercial importance. Nature dis- 

 courages violent hybridization, but encour- 

 ages mild crosses, e.g., as between different 

 varieties of the same species. The blood 

 of the European grape must be much 

 thinned before it can be safely combined 

 with American varieties. 



77 



The European grape failed because of the 

 black rot and downy mildew, two American 

 diseases which American grapes had learned 

 to resist in the progress of ages. Nature 

 had also hardened our vines against the 

 root louse, or phylloxera, but when this 

 insect and the two diseases above-named 

 reached Europe they revolutionized Euro- 

 pean viticulture. European vines are now 

 grown on roots of American, or phylloxera- 

 resistant, stocks. 



The wine grape is grown on the Pacific 

 Coast, but elsewhere grapes are essentially 

 a dessert fruit. The dominant type in the 

 North is the fox grape (Vitis Labrusca), of 

 which Concord is the most famous example. 

 The dominant type in the South is the 

 summer grape (V. aestivalis), of which 

 Norton's Virginia was the first good ex- 

 ample, furnishing much of the wine made 

 at Cincinnati about 1850. Another South- 

 ern type is the muscadine (V. rotundifolia) , 

 of which the most famous example is Scup- 

 pernong. The species which the Europeans 

 use for stocks is our river-bank grape (V. 

 vulpina). 



A new race of grapes for the Southwest 

 is being created by T. V. Munson of Denison, 

 Texas, who describes all the American 

 species, including several discovered by 

 him, in "The Foundations of American 

 Grape Culture." 



European grapes can be grown in the East 

 only under glass. 



EVOLUTION OF RASPBERRIES 



The European raspberries are red (rarely 

 purple) and are all derived from Rubus 

 I dams, so named after Mt. Ida in Greece. 

 They do not like our cold winters and hot 

 summers. Skilled amateurs are willing to 

 fuss with them and the standard of quality is 

 Brinckle's Orange, an American variety 

 which fruited first in 1845. 



Strangely enough the American red rasp- 

 berry (R. strigosus) is so much like the 

 European that many botanists do not 



Agawam blackberry. America is the only country 

 where this fruit is cultivated for market. If you 

 are prejudiced against it read page 78 



