SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 269 



I have absolute, abundant proof on my place that nearly all the 

 native plums are infertile with their own pollen, that they will 

 mature no fruit at all when isolated from other varieties and species 

 of the Almond family. I have also positive proof that most of the 

 different so-called species of plums, both foreign and native, inter- 

 cross or fertilize each other's flowers. 



I have a tree grown from a wild or native plum (species, P. 

 Americano) pit, that has the wood and branches of the wild plum; 

 leaf a mixture of the wild with the European plum; the fruit is 

 the size, color and shape of the Blue Damson: skin like the wild 

 plum; pulp very like the Damson, also the seed. This would be a 

 very valuable plum if the skin of the fruit was not so acerb and 

 bitter. 



In the variety known as the Langdon we have exactly the same 

 kind of a cross of the European or garden plum with the ^^ild plum 

 of the south (Frunus Clncosa)^ but in this instance the skin of the 

 fruit is thin and without bitterness, resulting in a very fine and very 

 profitable fruit. 



As a very common instance of such crossing we have an example 

 in the well known Wild Goose plum, a supposed pure variety of the 

 Chickasaw group, and the Miner, a very nearly pure variety of the 

 northern group. These two varieties with me, when growing en- 

 tirely isolated from each other or any species of the Almond family, 

 have not for twenty-five years matured a perfect specimen of fruit, 

 but the same two varieties, when growing quite near each other, 

 mature most abundant crops nearly every year. I have trees of both 

 that the past season gave their nineteenth full crop in succession. 

 Seedlings, therefore, grown from the seed of trees of these two 

 varieties, growing in this way, near together, should be crosses be- 

 tween these two varieties or species. They are. I have grown 

 thousands of such, and they show perfectly typical plants of both 

 species and every gradation in all particulars between the two. 



A careful experiment, carried through to test the fruit from 120 

 of such seedlings, showed the fruit all to be fairly good, some trees 

 giving fruit of extraordinary beauty, size, goodness and value. It 

 showed, in this case, that seed from the Miner gave far better fruit 

 and trees, than than that from Wild Goose. But one example 

 proves but little. 



The Spring of 1886 I carried branches of the Miner, in bloom, 

 and placed them in isolated trees of Wild Goose and Newman. Such 

 bore a full crop of fruit that season. None other of the isolated 

 trees did. This seems to be proof positive. 



For several years I had a large mixed cherry orchard, largely 

 seedlings. This was bordered on two sides with Miner and Wild 

 Goose plums in orchard — trees ten and twelve feet from the cherry 

 trees. The two varieties — or we may say species, unmixed except 

 at one point. With the exception of at the point where the two 



