72 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



From the above description it wiU be seen that the Marianna is 

 in several respects intermediate between Pniims cerasifera, as 

 represented in De Caradeuc, and the native American plums, 

 particularly in the short-stemmed fruit, small nearly sessile and 

 clustered later flowers and erect narrow calyx lobes, and spreading 

 habit. It is, therefore, little surprise to learn that the originator 

 considers it a seedling of Wild Goose. It originated as a seedling 

 in a mixed orchard, at Marianna, i'olk county, Texas, the prop- 

 erty of Charles Gr. Fitze. JSo far as I can learn, the seed was not 

 hand-sown, and there is a chance for error in the history. The 

 variety was introduced in 188i, by Charles JSf. Eley, tSmith Point, 

 Texas. 



The Marianna grows readily from cuttings, and this, in connec- 

 tion with the hardiness and vigor of the variety and the readiness 

 with which it unites in graftage with several species of prunus, 

 has made it very popular as a stock. The myrobalan itself grows 

 from cuttings, but in most cases not to a piotitable extent. I 

 have recently made a small experiment upon the rooting of cut- 

 tings of myrobalan, De Caradeuc and Marianna, in identical 

 conditions, under heat. Of myrobalan cuttings, less than ten 

 per cent grew; of De Caradeuc, less than tv/tnty per cent; of 

 Marianna, about seventy per cent. I do not know where the 

 Marianna could have obtained this peculiai'ity to grow readily 

 from cuttings; but it is idle to attribute it to hybridity until 

 we have determined if all varieties of myrobalans grow with 

 equal dilliculty from cuttings. The question will at once arise 

 if the Marianna is reliable as a stock, seeing that it is probably 

 partly of myrobalan origin; and in reply I can only say that 

 experience alone can detenu ine the value of a stock. Thus far 

 the Marianna has given good results. I apprehend that some 

 of the dissatisfaction with myrobalan stocks should be laid to 

 the indiscriminate use of variable seedlings; in order to obtain 

 unifoiTQ results a particular variety or strain of myrobalan should 

 be used. In this connection I may observe that the flowers of 

 Marianna appear with the leaves in New York, while they appear 

 before the leaves — as shown in Fig. 8 — in the middle and south- 



