I 
THIRTY-THIRD BlENNIAE SESSION 35 
for communication and commercial enterprise have brought distant lands 
together and have aided in that happy exchange of products which must 
increase rather than diminish. 
In England we owe much to the introduction of American fruits; the 
importation, for instance, of the early Peaches, such as Amsden June and 
Waterloo extended our season for this fruit fully a month. It is hardly nec- 
essary to multiply evidence of this kind; the benefit of the free exchange of 
good fruits is admitted on all hands. But I need not remind you that this 
traffic has one undesirable aspect, and that is the frequency with which 
fruits are imported and re-named and foisted upon the market as novelties. 
To find words to describe this practice, not alas unknown in the Old World* 
would lead me far beyond the limits of parliamentary language! I presume 
even the guilty parties heartily condemn it — in the case of the other man. 
This is a matter which you have, I know, tried to tackle in America, in 
your own societies. But it may often happen that a fruit well known, say 
in France, may be quite unknown in America, and equally an old native 
variety soon drops out and is forgotten even in its own land. 
Verification Trial Grounds. 
This difficulty can only be met by the establishment of gardens where 
all varieties of fruits, old and new, are gathered together for the purposes 
of record and comparison. Were I speaking to an audience of my own 
countrymen, I know I should at once hear the remark that this is too large 
a task to be practicable. But when I address a meeting of Americans I 
feel confident that this objection at least will not be made. With your 
broad acres, limitless purses and boundless enthusiam, I venture to think 
that it is in America that this ideal is most likely to be realized. 
The value of such a garden, even if only for the purpose of identifying 
fruits and establishing a correct nomenclature, would be inestimable. 
Verification by Reference. 
But there is another way in which the self-constituted re-baptiser of 
fruits may be checked in his career. In any case where the origin of a 
new fruit is not established to the satisfaction of the Pomological com- 
mittee, they should have the power to refer it to s(imilar committees of 
other national societies. A large body of expert opinion would be tapped and 
the chances of fraudulent re-naming greatly reduced. 
A Certificate of Origin. 
To this end it would be necessary to confer with other international 
societies and to obtain some sort of agreement as to procedure. There is 
happily a commercial value attaching to the awards of societies, and it is 
by this means that pressure can be put upon introducers of new varieties. 
A certificate merely stating that the fruit is considered to be a genuine 
novelty would be of value and avoid the danger now often experienced of 
awarding a certificate of merit on the fruit alone, without considering other 
indispensable points, such as freedom from disease. This, however, by the 
way. 
