82 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



There is much difference of opinion concerning the methods of 

 planting in order to secure fertilization. Many growers advise 

 planting in thick hedge-like rows, the trees standing not more 

 than four or eight feet apart in the row, eveiy fourth or fifth tree, 

 or every alternate row, being a self-fertile and very polliniferous 

 variety. Others practice setting the trees from nine to twelve feet 

 apart each way, with the impotent varieties in alternate rows. Tn 

 this way, for example, Forest Garden is made to fertilize both Miner 

 and Wild Goose. This treatment is commonly known as ** close 

 planting," and it has many able advocates. It is said, also, that 

 this close planting shades the ground so completely as to make it 

 too cool for the rapid development of the curculio. Such plant- 

 ings, unless the trees are heroically trimmed, soon result in an 

 unmanageable tangle. I have seen a Wild Goose tree thirty-six 

 feet across and still growing and bearing, and Miner, 

 Leptune and Langsdon scarcely less. Mr. Kerr, who is a very suc- 

 cessful grower, sets his trees from tw^enty to thirty feet apart, and 

 others have good success with equally thin planting. It is prob- 

 able that different varieties or combinations demand different 

 treatment in this respect; but it is plain that while the majoiity 

 of native plums apx>ear to be self -fertile, some of the most import- 

 ant varieties are impotent 



2. Propagation- — Another important diflBculty is that relating 

 to the selection of stocks. The native species work well ui>ou 

 each other, but the permanency and strength of the different 

 unions are still moot points. The varieties also unite readily with 

 the Marianna; and Domes tica plum stocks, myrobalan and peach 

 are also used. In general, it may be said that a variety prefei*s a 

 stock of its own si)ecies, although the true Chickasaws sprout or 

 sucker so badly as to make them undesirable. In the northei-n 

 States, especially in the prairie region, the I'limus Americana 

 stocks are most reliable because of their hardiness; arid as the 

 Americana varieties are the ones chiefly grown in this region, the 

 problem is a comparatively simple one. Wild Goose is gi'ow^n 

 largely upon the peach in the waimer latitudes and some growers 

 prefer this stock even in the north. All the Chickasaws grow 



