MUNSON, Thomas Volney, American horticulturist and plant breeder: b. on a farm near Astoria, III., 26 Sept. 1843; d. Denison, Tex., 21 Jan. 1913. His early education was obtained in the rural district schools, followed by a course in an academy at Lewiston. He subsequently took a course in a commercial col lege after which he entered the University of Kentucky, whence he was graduated in 1870. Shortly after completing his education he married and removed to the vicinity of Lin coln, Neb. In 1873 he became interested in the improvement of the various species of the native American grapes and planned to do systematic work in the way of developing new varieties by cross-pollenation and hybridization. The experiments thus undertaken were doomed to failure because of climatic rigors and a visi tation of the Rocky Mountain locusts. Undis mayed, he sought a new location, settling at Denison, Tex., in 1876. There climatic condi tions were much more favorable to the prosecu tion of such experiments and, moreover, wild grapes were much more abundant and more profuse in variety than in Nebraska. He en gaged in the nursery business and in the breed mg new varieties of grapes and also growing them upon a commercial scale. During the ensuing 25-year period, he produced and ex perimentally fruited no less than 150,000 new varieties of grapes, many of which were far superior to those hitherto in common cultiva tion. Only the very best of these were selected for propagation and dissemination and so rigid and exacting was the process of elimination that but 50 varieties were retained for intro duction and cultivation as a permanent addi tion to American viticulture. He became rec ognized as a botanist as well as a viticulturist, a volume entitled 'Native Trees of the South west' having been prepared under the direc tion of the 'United States Department of Agri culture and a similar thesis being submitted in 1883 for the master's degree at the Kentucky Agricultural College. But his specialty was the
grape and he became the recognized authority on the native wild grapes of North America. His horticultural and scientific work in hybrid izing and perfecting the American grapes won recognition abroad as well as at home. In appreciation of his service in producing and introducing resistant stocks with which to re store the phylloxera infested vineyards of France, the French government conferred upon him the diploma and decoration of the Legion of Honor, with the title of "Chevalier du Merit Agricole,D in 1888. He wrote