A Basis for the Future Classification of the Mango 



F. W. Popenoe, Washington, D. C. 



When a fruit attains commercial importance and is cultivated on an 

 extensive scale there arises an urgent need for detailed information respect- 

 ing varieties, and for nomenclatural accuracy. If the growers themselves 

 do not recognize this need, it is sure to he impressed upon them by an 

 exacting and discriminating market, always prompt to demand that the 

 product meet certain clearly defined requirements. 



While it may be said that the tropical fruits have been the last to 

 require attention of this nature, because of the unimportant part they have 

 played in commercial horticulture, with increased transportation facilities 

 they are coming more and more into prominence, avocados, mangos, and 

 cherimoyas being no longer rare on the fruit stands of large cities, while 

 the banana and the pineapple years ago became standard products. 



Vegetative, or asexual, propagation, arising from the desire to perpet- 

 uate a choice form originating as a chance seedling is usually the first 

 step toward the recognition of the importance of the question of varieties. 

 In the last quarter of a century a number of tropical fruits, previously grown 

 exclusively as seedlings and not considered important, have come under 

 the influence of modem horticultural science, and through the aid of 

 vegetative propagation have been raised to the level of valuable horti- 

 cultural products. The vegetative propagation of the mango in India, 

 however, dates back some hundreds of years; hence, the existence and im- 

 portance of varieties has long been recognized. The Hindus, being a fruit 

 loving people, have increased their varieties until they now number several 

 hundred, and either consciously or unconsciously wrought great improvement 

 in the fruit over its wild forms; but, with the characteristic inertia of the 

 Orient, they have paid little attention to the systematic culture of the 

 fruit, and less to its systematic study, though one could not expect much 

 in this latter line. The Arab date growers of Baghdad, however, know 

 vastly more about the dates of the entire Arabian peninsula than does the 

 average Hindu about the mangos of the Indian peninsula. 



Ancient Practices. 



The Indian has been satisfied to go on multiplying the number of 'o 

 varieties indefinitely, perpetuating by the laborious method of inarching C 



