THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
AMERICAN FRUIT LISTS. 
The Natural Way < to Devise Them Pointed Out By Hon. C. L. 
Watrous— Improve Fruits Indigenous to the Area in Question — 
Nature Will Prevail Regardless of Temporary Successes — 
Valuable Boohs- Fruits for State of Iowa. 
At the annual meeting of the Iowa State Horticultural So¬ 
ciety at Des Moines last month Hon. C. L. Watrous read a 
paper on “ The Natural Way to Revise Our Fruit Lists.” 
After referring to' the deductions of Charles Darwin in his 
“Origin of Species,” Mr. Watrous said : 
Many other students have devoted themselves to broaden¬ 
ing and illuminating the truths discovered by Darwin. Alfred 
Russell Wallace, the Englishman, in his great book “Geogra¬ 
phical Distribution of Animals” shows that the geography of 
the earth is well marked by the specific differences of the ani¬ 
mals and plants inhabiting its different regions. In his book 
entitled “The Malayan Archipelago” and that other called 
“ Island Life ” he gives the results of other years of travel and 
study. Everywhere differences in climate showed different 
plants, animals, insects, and birds; and differences in anima^ 
and vegetable life proclaimed differences of latitude or of ele¬ 
vation, without consulting maps. Our own Asa Gray has 
written with wondrous wisdom and charm of his studies con¬ 
firmatory of the same truths. His most notable contribution 
being his presidential address before the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science, in 1872. That address is 
the finest exposition in the English language of the facts that 
the plants of Eastern America find their nearest relatives among 
those of Eastern Asia and Japan, while those of Europe find 
their likenesses along the western shores of America. This 
accounts for the well-known facts that the wine and raisin 
grapes, the almonds and walnuts and olives of Europe find 
congenial homes in California, but fail on our eastern coasts 
where many plants from China and Japan thrive and multiply 
LIFE AND CROP ZONES. 
In 1898 there has appeared from our own Department of 
Agriculture, Division of Biology, a modest pamphlet entitled 
“Life Zones and Crop Zones of the United States” embody¬ 
ing the results of a scientific survey of our own country. In 
his introduction, Professor Merriam says that “it was early 
suspected that the life zones of native plants, animals and 
birds marked also the limits of profitable culture of different 
varieties of farm crops and fruits,” and that this has since been 
fully established. In making conclusions from published 
statistics he finds one of the chief difficulties to be that nearly 
all published matter is arranged by states and counties and 
without regard to climatic areas and that “ another difficulty is 
the over sanguine attitude of many fruit growers and horticul¬ 
tural societies, particularly in the West, where innumerable 
varieties are reported as succeeding in places where they have 
not been tested a sufficient length of time.” 
Whether or not any of us has ever done anything worthy of 
such reproach, the warning is one that we may all properly 
take to ourselves and profit thereby. He says that it was 
early learned that North America is divisible into seven trans¬ 
continental life zones and a much larger number of areas, each 
characterized by particular associations of native animals and 
plants, and that it is the limits of these areas that the farmer 
and fruit grower disregards at his peril. The pamphlet is one 
15 I 
long warning that no matter what temporary successes may be 
had, yet in the^'end, nature has her way and men must con¬ 
form. These zones are shown in bright colors, green, blue, 
yellow, etc., upon the accompanying map which deserves the 
most careful study by every fruit planter. A study of this 
chart will explain why reports of the successes of fruits in the 
high regions of Colorado and the northern regions of Wiscon¬ 
sin and Vermont, though originated further north, serve only 
to darken counsel and lead to danger unless accompanied with 
the warning that those regions all belong to more northern 
zones than ours, and that we should therefore be cautious in 
planting them. Inspection shows that the boreal or coldest 
region (colored green) comes down in our longitude to about 
latitude 46, then follows 350 miles of transit in (colored blue) 
its south limit coming down only slightly into Central North¬ 
ern Iowa, to be succeeded by the yellow of our life zone 
extending across Iowa and Missouri. This explains the diffi¬ 
culties with foreign fruits from the boreal region of another 
continent in latitude 55 to 57, twelve to fifteen degrees north 
of Central Iowa. 
IN NATURE’S tf/irS. 
It is now submitted that until these conclusions of science 
have been disproved we shall be safe in working towards a re¬ 
vision of our fruit lists in nature’s ways ; that in adding new 
fruits, those from our own area or from one differing least 
from ours may be most safely admitted and vice versa ; that 
in breeding new fruits, those already thriving here are more 
likely to produce healthy and long-lived offspring than those 
from a different life zone, and that those from a different life 
area can be fully adapted by nature’s way only. They must 
die and be born again, through seed. Dr. Draper says it takes 
four generations of men to turn Europeans into Americans. 
An open-eyed volunteer in Florida the past summer wrote “I 
have yet to see a native with the ruddy color of Iowans. 
There are to-day but six of us out of 100 fit to drill.” Not 
one of us in this room has forgotten Santiago and what its 
climate did to our soldiers. 
Professor Merriam, says mournfully that ignorance or disre¬ 
gard to these facts developed by the biological survey costs 
the farmers of the United States hundreds of thousands an¬ 
nually and that the longer the time occupied in the test, as in 
fruits, the greater must be the final loss, and that while rail¬ 
roaders, miners, and manufacturers employ skilled scientists 
to advise and carry out their plans, farmers have been left to 
grope in the dark. 
I wish that every member of this society would write to the 
Department of Agriculture for bulletin No. 10, Division of 
Biological Survey and study it well, and that as many as can 
would obtain and study at least, two books of that foremost 
of all American horticultural writers, Professor L. H. Bailey, 
“ Plant Breeding,” and “ The Evolution of our Native Fruits.” 
When these three books have been thoroughly understood, all 
our dissentions about foreign fruits will cease and we shall be 
ready, heartily and unitedly, to work with our new professor 
of horticulture in adding'fruits to our lists in nature’s way. 
FRUITS FOR IOWA. 
The weakest place in our fruit lists is in winter apples. 
You all know that there is not one satisfactory winter apple 
in Northern Iowa. I submit that the natural way is to try to 
breed some from those already here. My own belief is, as 
published some twelve years ago, that our native apples a nc i 
