36 Bulletin 139. 



is handsome, long keeping, and covers a long season.* Thus far, they 

 have been comparatively free from black-knot, and until this year our trees 

 have not been seriously attacked by the shot-hole fungus or leaf-blight. 

 During the past season, however, this leaf blight has been much worse 

 upon the Japanese varieties than upon the domesticas alongside them, 

 and this, too, in spite of the fact that they were thoroughly sprayed. 

 The leaves did not drop to any extent, however, even though they 

 were badly riddled by the fungus. 



The following notes must not be taken to be complete or final 

 descriptions of the varieties. In many cases they are made from the 

 first crop on young trees. But they record the present state of our 

 knowledge respecting this new and much confused type of fruits. It 

 is our habit to set the wood of new varieties (either as buds or grafts) 

 in the tops of Lombard plums, and several of the varieties have been 

 fruited only in this way. The pictures are all natural size, and are 

 made from average specimens. The reader should be told that the 

 pictures always look smaller than the objects, even though they are of 

 the same size. Other true pictures of the fruits and trees of Japanese 

 plums may be found in our Bulletin 106. That bulletin attempts to 

 describe all the varieties known at that time (1895), but the present 

 report concerns itself only with those varieties which we have fruited. 



A most perplexing feature of the Japanese plums is the variation in 

 the season of ripening in different years. In our first Japanese plum 

 bulletin, we said that the Burbank ** is from two to four weeks later" 

 than the Abundance. We had not then fruited the varieties side by 

 side. In our second bulletin, we said that the difference in ripening 

 was only " a week or two," and added that upon our grounds the 

 Burbank, in 1895, ^' was less than a week later than Abundance." 



* These plums are now beginning to attract attention in Europe ; and the 

 following report comes from South Africa (E. Tidmarsh, in Rep. Grahams- 

 town Botanic Gardens, 1895, 5) : " The Japanese plums, although not quite 

 equal in flavor to the best sorts grown in Europe, have valuable properties for 

 this climate. For one thing, these varieties, so far as I have tried them, 

 grow freely grafted on the peach. A number of the European sorts refuse 

 to grow on the peach, and this is a drawback in two waj's. First, the peach 

 stock is, on the whole, best adapted to this climate, and secondly, it is a 

 difficult matter to raise suitable plum stocks in this country." 



Persons in the South should consult Bulletin 85, Alabama Exp, Sta., on 

 "Japanese Plums," by V. S. Earle. 



