GREAT as has been the progress of pomology in this country within the past fifty years, the people of the United States are still scantily supplied with fruits. The European species, which have been our main dependence hitherto, are only adapted, and that in some cases but imperfectly, to the Atlantic and Pacific slopes and limited portions of the interior. In the greater portion of the fertile prairie belt, extending from the gulf to the British line, and still more in the arid region westward, which comprises nearly one-half the total area of the United States, the successful cultivation of fruit is practically unknown. The whole of this interior region, however, as well as the more fertile borders fed by the waters of the two oceans, abounds with native fruits as full of promise to the intelligent cultivator as any of those from which our well-known fruits of commerce have sprung. Even in the driest and hottest regions along the Mexican border more than a hundred species of cacti are found, a majority of which have edible fruits, some of them of delicious flavor.

The development already made in our native fruits is only a beginning of what the future will show. The improvement of our native grapes, gooseberries, rasp-berries, etc., has been brought about by the partial or complete failure of foreign varieties ; and our increasing population, and the failures in fruit raising, owing to the peculiar climate and soil in the newer states, and to the destruction of the forests in the older sections of the country, will lead to the improvement and cultivation of other native American fruits. Already we see a marked increase in the attention given to our native plums, and the time is probably not far distant when our markets, east as well as west, will be mainly supplied with plums derived from American species. Our cultivated raspberries and blackberries, which have been developed from the wild state within the memory of most of us, are destined to still further improvement. Our wild huckleberries, which are gathered in enormous quantities in some of the northern states, will soon be nearly gone, and then some of them will be brought under cultivation.

Our wild cherries have hardly been thought of as subjects for improvement; yet some of them are better than the originals of the cherries we now grow.

No other country is blessed by nature with greater resources in the way of wild fruits than the United States. Had the early settlers who came to this country been prevented from bringing any of the cultivated fruits of Europe with them, and had they relied for their fruits solely on what their intelligence and energy could make of the wild fruits found growing here, it is not improbable that this country, young as it is, would be better supplied with valuable varieties of fruit than it now is. Certain it is that the prolonged effort to cultivate foreign fruits has been the greatest hindrance to the development of our native resources in that direction; and as a rule it is only where the foreign kinds have failed that the possibilities existing in our native species have become known. Whatever shall be made in the future from our remaining wild fruits will depend not so much on the possibilities of each species as on the need of the people for other fruits to meet the requirements of different soils, seasons and purposes.

The beginning of improvement may be seen in almost any of our wild fruits. Professor Asa Gray well observed that "There occur in nature the same kinds of variation as those to which we owe our cultivated fruits, etc.; that such originate not rarely in nature, and develop to a certain extent, enough to show the same cause operating in free as in controlled nature; enough to show the cultivator what he should take in hand." But the improvement of fruits is a slow process, especially at the beginning. It is easier to get along with what we have than to spend time in the doubtful effort to obtain something better. Especially is this true in this country, where so many profitable avenues of labor are open.

Another cause which now retards the production of new varieties is the systematic propagation and dissemination of established varieties by nurserymen. The modern nursery, with its methods of reaching every portion of the land, renders it no longer necessary for the settler to plant seeds if he would have fruit. For this reason fewer new varieties come into existence now than formerly. Such valuable new varieties as do appear are quickly disseminated, but it is doubtful if there is at present in the United States much more real progress in pomology than a quarter of a century ago.

There has never been anything like the systematic, well directed and protracted effort toward the improvement of fruit that has been exercised in the improvement of domestic animals. There has, also, been lacking suitable standards of excellence by which to establish or condemn new varieties. Indeed, owing to the modifying influence of soil and climate upon varieties, the proper rating of a new fruit is by no means easy. Both the improvement and the testing of new varieties requires a careful and prolonged attention which the individual horticulturist can rarely give. Much is therefore expected in the way of rapid and accurate work from the experiment stations lately established. The assumption by the government of what the people at large have practically abandoned for special lines of industry, will doubtless give an impetus to pomology, of great and far-reaching benefit to the whole people. Among the promising wild fruits which will be treated in succeeding papers are the crab-apple, plums, cherries, huckleberries and blueberries; some of the rarer blackberries, raspberries and gooseberries; the pawpaw, persimmon, buffalo berry and cacti; and our wild nuts, including the hickories, walnuts, butternut, chestnut, chinquapin and hazel.

These will afford a fertile field for investigations that should be of benefit. Michigan. A. A. Crozier.