ABSTRACT
In spite of its popularity with early settlers, the blueberry was among the most recent fruits to be domesticated. This was probably due to its abundance in the wild, making cultivation unnecessary (Card 1903). With the burgeoning U.S. population, demand for the fruit increased at the same time suitable habitat decreased, thus forcing the plant into cultivation around the turn of the 20th century. Some earlier attempts at transplanting wild plants were successfulnotably those of V. atrococcum, the black highbush blueberry, on the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution around 1850-but most ef forts failed because the plant’s requirement for acid soil was un known.
