Notes Upon Plums. 179 



Varieties. — The most popular variety of the plum, and also one 

 ■of the poorest, is the Lombard. Its redeeming merits are its 

 great productiveness and the vigor and hardiness of the tree. The 

 fruit is of o quality, it comes at a season when the market 



is full of plums and other fruits, it is very susceptible to the leaf- 

 blight fungus and the fruit-rot, and its color is not of the best. 

 The very fact that it is the commonest and cheapest plum would 

 seem to indicate that it is not the best variety'' from which to 

 make the greatest commercial success. I am convinced that the 

 Lombard has been greatly overplanted ; yet, I know of many 

 orchards of it which are very successful commercially. In west- 

 ern New York the best markets are likely to be found for the 

 early and late plums, and for those which have very pronounced 

 colors, especially those which are dark red or purple. Some of 

 the dark yellows are also very excellent for market fruits. Fruits 

 of nondescript colors, like those which border on the ill-defined 

 reds, the browns and the lemon yellows, are usually not profitable. 

 There is some exception to all this in the case of the Reine 

 Claude, which is a yellowish-green plum ; but its great merit as 

 a culinary variety and its established reputation save it from the 

 gen-eral condemnation of plums of that class. There is also an 

 exception in the small Damson plums which are highly esteemed 

 in some markets, especially in Boston, for culinary purposes. 



It would be impossible to give any list of varieties which would 

 be adapted to any particular orchard. The question of varieties 

 is very largely a personal one. Very much depends upon what 

 ideal the grower has in his mind, and also upon his soil and loca- 

 tion and the like. Amongst the plums which can be most 

 confidently recommended for market in western New York are 

 the following : Field, Bradshaw, Coe's Golden Drop, Hudson 

 River Purple Egg, Italian Prune, Empire, Grand Duke, Arch 

 Duke, Monarch, Gueii, Peter's Yellow Gage, Reine Claude and 

 Copper. Amongst the Damsons, the French and the Farleigh 

 are perhaps the best. Of the Japanese plums, the only ones 

 which I would care to recommend for profit in western New York 

 at present are the Red June, Abundance, Burbank and Chase. 

 The Red June promises to be the best very early market plum for 

 this region which I know. So far as known, the domestica and 

 Japanese plums are self- fertile, but it is always the safest course 

 to plant varieties in alternate rows. 



