BULLETIN 226] [DECEMBER, 1914 



Ontario Department of Agriculture 



FRUIT BRANCH 



Plum Culture in Ontario 



F. M. Clement. 



Of the important tree fruits plums and pears have received least attention at 

 fruit meetings, and in the agricultural press during the last few years. Apples are 

 worth a great deal more money to the Province, and as a consequence are more gen- 

 erally popular, and take the leading place in the discussions. Peaches, though 

 adapted commercially to limited areas in the Province, have through the energy and 

 organization of the growers been boosted excessively in tender fruit sections. J^ven 

 in cherries, of late, a few are quoting the large profits that have been made and are 

 to be made from them, and the plantings are rapidly increasing. 1914 crop and low 

 prices will, however, check this advance for a time. Pears have begun to grow in 

 popularity because of the more gradual upward trend of prices and the more suc- 

 cessful control of blight, but plums at date of writing are not holding their own in 

 the Province, and except for a few growers who are making a success of them the 

 interest is dead. Prices are from medium to low, few trees are being planted, their 

 care is incidental, or secondary, and they are almost everywhere considered a side 

 line, not a specialty. The purposes of this Bulletin, therefore, are : 



1. To sum up the status of the industry as a whole. 



2. To study causes of the lack of interest. 



3. To study the cultural methods of the most successful growers. 



4. To describe a few varieties that are important commercially. 



5. And to offer suggestions for future development. 



(1) PEESENT STATUS OF THE INDUSTRY. 



The census returns for 1911 show a decrease in the number of trees in the 

 Province. In 1901 Ontario was credited with 1,685,719 trees. Of this number 

 999,091 were bearing and 686,628 were non-bearing. In 1911, the last year for 

 which the census figures are available, Ontario was credited with 1,124,022 trees, 

 767,827 of which were bearing and 356,195 were non-bearing. The number of 

 bearing trees had decreased by 330,433, or 48.1 per cent., while the total decrease 

 was 561,697 trees, or 33.3 per cent. The greatest decrease is in the non-bearing 



