290 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Green: AYe get reports from the north where they say it is very 

 hardy. 



Mr. Chase of New York: Moore's Arctic is tender with us, but informa- 

 tion that we have from latitudes as high as northern Maine report it hardy. 

 It is the earliest plum that we grow, and I should not agree with our friend 

 from Geneva. It is a good plum, and in favor on account of its being 

 early; it is not hardy in New York. It is one of those plum trees that 

 sells, w^e cannot tell why, but there is a demand for it, an unusual demand, 

 more than the supply. It is very productive, one of the most productive 

 plums grown. 



Mr. Willaed: Our experience with this plum is that it is productive; 

 do not understand me as saying that it is not productive ; but, so far as our 

 experience goes, the foliage drops so badly that the fruit fails to mature. 

 It seems impossible to get good fruit unless you have foliage to mature it. 



Mr. Augustine of Illinois: I would like to have some of our western 

 people tell us of some plum that will do well with us. The varieties that 

 friend Willard named, those that we are acquainted with, do us no good in 

 the west. I mean certain states when I speak of the west. All the 

 European varieties are of no account in our section of the country. We 

 have the Wild Goose and the Wolf, and I would give more for an acre of 

 those than for ten or fifteen acres of the European varieties. If there are 

 any of our western people that liave discovered any new varieties that will 

 do well in our soil and climate, I would like to hear from them. The AYild 

 Goose is a very good bearer when well fertilized, and so is the Wolf, but 

 they are not the very best varieties of plum, and if there are any others, I 

 would like to know of them, because we are of the opinion in the west that 

 we must group them together, different varieties, in order to make them a 

 success, and we ought to have better and more varieties. We can not very 

 well confine ourselves to those. I would like to know something about the 

 PotM^attamie ; how it has proved itself. Is it a good bearer ; is it hardy, and 

 is it a success? 



Mr. Carpenter: I would say that the DeSoto and Forest Garden are 

 both very valuable plums, ancl we find in Nebraska that the red and blue 

 Damson do remarkably well ; several of our neighbors are getting full crops 

 every yea^. 



Prof. BuDD of Iowa: Perhaps I might not agree entirely with other 

 growers of the west, speaking of native varieties of the plum. I give my 

 own experience on the grounds of the Agricultural college at Ames. Now, 

 all oiTr native plums of the Merrimac race are hardy; that is, so far as I 

 know, and those that bear the best, one year with another, are the DeSoto, 

 the Wolf, the Wyandotte, and the RoUingstone. These forir varieties 

 bear continuously, from the time they are in the nursery row until they are 

 at least ten years of age. We have some of them that have been bearing 

 now continuously for eight years. Of the Chicasaw race, the two varieties 

 that bear continuously, and that seem to be the hardiest in tree and fruit 

 bud, and the best in quality, are the Forest Rose and the Maquoketa. The 

 Forest Rose, I think, originated in Missouri, with Scott & Co., and it is 

 better in quality than any of them except the Wild Goose; if you get a 

 Wild Goose, the typical Wild Goose, it is equal in quality with the Maquo- 

 keta and the Forest Rose; they are about equal in quality. In regard 

 to European plums, we have found all the European plums tender, that is, 

 all from the southwest of Europe ; but almost without exception, the plums 

 of that part of Europe north and east of the Carpathian mountains are hardy. 



