PROCEEDINGS OP THE SUMMER MEETING. 59 



us, but time will demonstrate their truth. Yet there is not anywhere a 

 better region for fruitgrowing than here in Oceana county, as the grand 

 show of fruit in Mr. Adams' orchard will attest. The plow should never 

 be put into peach and plum orchards, after the third year, but cultivators 

 of various sorts may be used, and used so often as to make the plow unnec- 

 essary. I use Pearce's gang plow. We shall have from half to two thirds 

 of a crop of apples, and small fruits are very full. 



WILL THERE BE OVERPRODUCTION OF PLUMS ? 



Mr. J. M. Haight of Shelby: Will Mr. Willard tell us what he thinks 

 as to the possible overproduction of plums? 



Mr. Willard: This is a question I am often asked. There is a possi- 

 bility of the overproduction of some varieties. The Lombard we find no 

 longer profitable, on the whole; yet, like the Concord grape and the Bald- 

 win apple, it is everybody's fruit. It bears a great crop, every other year, 

 everywhere, and the markets are flooded. The very early and the very late 

 plums are the ones from which to make money. Some varieties are desirable 

 here that are not so with us. Yellow plums are desirable, and of these the 

 Bavay and Coe's Golden Drop are the best. If such are not wanted here 

 now, they will be in a few years. You can see them on Mr. Gebhart's 

 farm. The Fellenburg prune will do well here, and its production is not 

 likely to be overdone. There are more than forty sorts of prune, but they 

 all go as German; and as the west is full of Germans, they will want this 

 sort of fruit, and feel sure they are getting just what they had in the old 

 country. The Fellenburg is the best of the lot. It is not everywhere so 

 successful as it will be here, and is all the better for that. Plums are all 

 right on peach roots — that is, those which take kindly to it, but some do 

 not. 



black-knot once more. 



Mr. N. B. Farnsworth of Shelby had never seen black-knot on plums 

 on peach roots and he has many varieties so budded. 



Mr. Willard could not see how that could make any difference. 



Mr. Shirts of Shelby exhibited a large black-knot he took last spring 

 from a plum tree on peach roots, and said he had lost many trees of that 

 kind. He has some Canada Egg, which he likes as well as Yellow Egg. 

 They bear heavily and so must be thinned. 



Mr. Haight: I have ninety Bradshaw trees on peach roots, and have 

 cut off much black-knot from them; yet I prefer them so, for they are 

 larger, finer trees than when on plum roots, and longer lived. I would 

 plant deeply enough to secure roots from both root and stock. 



