The Evolution of American Fruit-Growing, II. — By Wilhelm Mill 



~ r New 

 Cr, York 



TWO CENTURIES AND MANY THOUSAND DOLLARS WASTED ON A FALSE START— THE GOAL WE NOW AIM 

 AT — HOW TO SAVE HEART-BREAKING DISAPPOINTMENT AND ADD MILLIONS TO THE NATIONAL WEALTH 



TN my first article in the March issue, I 

 -1 showed that European fruits are, as a 

 rule, ill-adapted to our climate. All our 

 small fruits, save the currant, have been 

 evolved from American species. So far it 

 looks as if progress lay along the line of 

 developing American species and throwing 

 overboard the European as fast as we safely 

 can do so. 



THE GOOSEBERRY AND CURRANT 



It is hard for Americans to understand 

 that in England the most important fruit, 

 commercially, is the plum, and that next to it 

 ranks the gooseberry. There is a gooseberry 

 society which has published bound annual 

 reports for over fifty years. The gooseberry 

 of Europe is much 

 larger than ours and 

 it is commonly al- 

 lowed to ripen, when 

 it is eaten out of hand. 

 It failed as a market 

 fruit here because of 

 an American mildew. 



The most impor- 

 tant of our numerous 

 species of gooseberry 

 is Ribes Cynosbati, 

 which has given rise 

 to the Downing, the 

 favorite market va- 

 riety. European 

 gooseberries are re- 

 markably prickly, 

 and these prickles 

 are a nuisance. Cul- 

 tivation reduces 

 them and the evolu- 

 tion of the American 

 gooseberry has been 

 characterized chiefly 

 by the effort to get 

 rid of them entirely. 

 Our best gooseber- 

 ries are still too tart 

 for a dessert fruit, 

 but eventually we will eat them fresh. 



It is now practical for skilled amateurs 

 to grow English gooseberries in parts of the 

 United States where the summers are cool, 

 because we have fungicides that are effective 

 against the mildew. 



The currant is the only total exception 

 to the climatic rule above laid down. True, 

 the Crandall is derived from a native species, 

 but it is of small importance. The Euro- 

 pean currant (Ribes rubrum), or a species 

 very like it, grows wild in America, and our 

 form of it has never been developed. What 

 percentage of modern currants are of Ameri- 

 can origin I do not know. 



EVOLUTION OF THE TREE FRUITS 



When we look at the tree fruits, they 

 seem to bristle with contradictions to the 



rule already set forth, since we have no 

 native pears, peaches, apricots, or quinces, 

 and our native apples do not amount to 

 much. Nevertheless, if the reader will 

 patiently and candidly examine the fol- 

 lowing evidence, he will be forced to the 

 conclusion that the same climatic law holds 

 and that Americanization has really taken 

 place. 



EVOLUTION OF THE APPLE 



I must frankly admit that our native 

 apples are all crabs, and at present fit only 

 for preserves. True, they are of con- 

 siderable importance on the prairies and 

 in the cold Northwest, where Eastern apples 

 will not a;row; and their blood will con- 



Dessert apples 

 Market apples 

 Crab apples . 



American 



. 33 out of 



Downing, the leading American gooseberry. Our gooseberries eventually 'will be ripened and eaten out 



of hand, like English gooseberries 



tribute hardiness and productiveness to 

 a new Western race of apples. But, 

 meanwhile, they are too acid for a dessert 

 fruit. All the best apples are descended 

 from Pyrus Mains, a native of Europe 

 and Asia. 



However, the Old World apple has been 

 strongly Americanized. As early as 1806, 

 66 per cent, of the varieties recommended 

 by the foremost pomologist were of American 

 origin. There was an apparent drop in 

 1845, f° r om y 5 2 P er cenr - 0I those described 

 in Downing's first edition were American, 

 but we must remember that this was the era 

 of wholesale introduction of European fruits, 

 the total number of apples having increased 

 from 45 to 190. By 1872, this total had 

 swelled to the vast number of 1,856,' yet 

 the American percentage had risen to 59. 

 234 



By 1892 it had risen to 88 per cent., and 

 probably more, for there are always many 

 varieties of unknown origin and three- 

 fourths of these are presumably American. 

 In 1897, Bailey estimated that 77 per cent, 

 of the European varieties had been lost to 

 cultivation, and only 33 per cent, of the 

 American. 



Moreover, the American varieties have 

 shown so great an improvement in quality 

 that in 1888 when T. T. Lyon made his 

 famous catalogue of fruits the following 

 ranked 9 or 10 in a scale of 10 : 



Total 



• • • 38 



16 out of ... 19 

 8 out of 9 



I admit that such 

 figures are neither 

 accurate nor abso- 

 lutely convincing. 

 But from the nature 

 of the case, there is 

 no simple or accurate 

 measure of adapta- 

 tion to climate and 

 other conditions, and 

 we must fall back 

 upon the general 

 opinion of pomolo- 

 gists. 



EVOLUTION OF THE 

 PEAR 



The pear is the 

 most plausible ex- 

 ception to our rule, 

 because we have no 

 native pears and this 

 fruit is, undoubtedly, 

 less Americanized 

 than any other of 

 importance. For 

 example, of the vari- 

 eties cultivated in 

 i8r7 only 4 percent, 

 were American, and 

 by 1872 only 26 per cent. But consider 

 these facts: Of the sixty-five varieties 

 recommended in 181 7, only four survived 

 as late as 1892, and all these were Ameri- 

 can. Again, of the high-quality pears in 

 1888, seven out of twenty-one dessert 

 pears were American, and four out of 

 twelve market pears were American. 



Moreover, the Kieffer, bad as it is, seems 

 destined to become the dominant type of 

 pear, and all the virtues of this variety are 

 due to its Chinese blood, for it is a hybrid 

 of the sand pear (Pyrus Sinensis), which 

 comes from the one climate in the world 

 that resembles most closely that ox the 

 eastern United States. And while the big, 

 showy Kieffers of the fruit stands are about 

 as edible as rocks, the important fact 

 remains that they are good when canned — 





