STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 143 



Goose plum, which is one of the best phims I have ever seen. It is of a 

 clear crimson color, very large in size ; I have never seen it cultivated. 

 The true Wild Goose plum tree has every characteristic of the common 

 Chickasaw plum, but the fruit is at least three times the size of the Chick- 

 asaw. I have nothing of its history to advance. If it can be obtained 

 true, it is really worth while cultivating, and worth trying in this section 

 of the country. 



Mr. Dunlap — I have got fifty trees, and I think there are fift) 

 kinds. 



Mr. Mahan — I received a variety of the Wild Goose plum from a 

 gentleman at Tamaroa, and budded it in peach at Centralia, and it has 

 come into fruit since I came here (Champaign). I am told it is a very 

 large and beautiful plum, and spoken of in the very highest terms. It 

 bore fruit last year, after a hard winter. When I was there last spring, I 

 got buds from the tree, and while the peach stock upon which it was bud- 

 ded was killed stone dead, the top part was alive, and I cut cions from 

 it, and grafted them in here, and they lived, so that I have grafts growing 

 that came off trees that were dead at the bottom. I am disposed to 

 believe it is a very fine fruit, very large in size, and of ruddy color on one 

 side. I know that the same kind of plum is borne on trees near the Ohio 

 river. This gentleman got it from somewhere in Tennessee, and he sent 

 me a dozen or twenty young sprouts. 



Mr. Wier — I recollect seeing that article in the Chicago Tribune, 

 and I took issue with it, the same as Mr. Beebe has, and intended to have 

 an essay on the subject at this meeting. Still, there are some facts Mr. 

 Beebe does not mention. I have had this plum in fruit three years, and 

 I know it is a very good thing to have. Last winter, it proved hardier 

 with me than the Miner. There is no doubt but where there have been 

 hundreds of varieties of plums of the Chickasaw family sent out as "Wild 

 Goose," as Rural says in the Tribune — yet there is only one true var- 

 iety of that plum. It may be known by having leaves waved on the 

 edges, and also notched. It is a plum about as large as the end of the 

 thumb — not quite — of a clear scarlet red, ripening from the 17th to the 

 24th of July. It can be shipped ripe to almost any distance or any- 

 where, as it will ripen up on the passage. As early as the loth of June 

 last, they were sold at from three to ten cents each. I think the past win- 

 ter has demonstrated that it is fiilly hardy enough to stand the winter in 

 any part of Illinois, and I think there will be as great a demand for it 

 within five years as there is now for the Early Richmond cherry. It is 



