. No one book contains them all, although some
of the manuals are voluminous. Varieties drop out of existence, being
no longer propagated; new varieties come in.

So the lists of varieties gradually change. A list of one hundred
years ago would contain many names strange to us. Thus, of the sixty
apples in "A Select List of Fruit-Trees" by Bernard M'Mahon, published
in "The American Gardener's Calendar," in 1806, not more than six or
eight would be understandable to a planter of the present day.

With the standardizing of practices in the commercial growing of
fruits, the tendency is to reduce the number of varieties to small
proportions; it is these varieties that the nurserymen propagate.
Here and there over the country are still trees of the extra-quality
but uncommercial varieties known to a former generation. If the
amateur now wants to grow these varieties, he must find cions as best
he can by patient correspondence, and graft them on his own trees.
When I planted an orchard twenty-five years ago, I found cions of
Jefferis here, of Dyer there, of Mother, Swaar and Chenango in other
places.

In the enlarged edition of Downing's "Fruits and Fruit-Trees of
America," 1872, are descriptions of 1856 varieties, of which 1099 are
American in origin, 585 foreign, 172 of origin unknown. The lists are
not only much smaller in these days, but the foreign element tends to
pass out. With the introduction of the Russian apples for the cold
North in the latter part of the past century, the importation of
foreign varieties practically ceased, as it ceased also for the pears
at an earlier date with the introductions of Manning, Wilder and
others. The epoch of the "testing" of varieties passed away, and with
it has gone an appreciative attitude toward fruits and even toward
life that constitutes a sad lack in our day.

About thirty years ago (1892) I compiled an inventory of all the
varieties of apple-trees sold in North America, as listed in the
ninety-five nurserymen's catalogues that came to my hand. The inventory
contains 878 varieties. In the present year, however, perhaps not more
than 100 varieties are handled by nurserymen in Eastern United States.
Probably the dealer and grower would consider even this small number
much too great. The highly developed standardized business of the
present day, aiming at quantity-production, naturally reduces the
variety of products, whether in manufacturing or horticulture, and
aims at