WESTERN NEW YORK HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 463 



and cheap land have stimulated production so far beyond consumption that we are 

 confronted with the proposition of "May wheat in ISIU at 64c.'* 



Not many years since an acquaintance, in reply to what varieties of apples should be 

 planted for profit, said, -'I would plant ninety out of every hundred Baldwins, and then 

 I guese I would make the other ten Baldwins." We have lived to see that in a year of 

 great productiveness for the apple there is too great an excess of Baldwins to afford 

 the largest profit — an over-production of a single variety of the apple — and so our illus- 

 trations could be multiplied without limit. Our danger line is in over-production of 

 everything raised, and let the plum grower approach it cautiously in his future deliber- 

 ations, remembermg that the consumption of this fruit beyond the requirements of the 

 near-by canning factory must be in villages and cities of easy access by quick and 

 expensive transportation, or its perishable nature will soon render it unfit for market. 



It should he understood that we argue from our own standpoint Ss a New York 

 fruit grower, while if twenty-five years younger, holding the views now entertained, we 

 might see the subject in a vastly different light when viewed from some other of the 

 sections referred to. But, as the plum is not a long-lived tree, requiring intensive 

 culture and intelligent care to the attainment of satisfactory results, we should com- 

 mend this culture in a moderate way in connection with other fruits, so as to have the 

 greatest variety of all such fruits as can be successfully grown and marketed from our 

 location. This has been the theory of our own work and that advised for others for 

 several years, and which we believe not only safe, but entirely practical. 



We regard systematic annual pruning as very desirable in a plum orchard, begin- 

 ginning at the second or third year after planting, depending on the growth made and 

 upon varieties inclined to make wood rapidly, removing or cutting from one-fourth to one- 

 half of the previous year's growth, thus taking the necessary steps toward the formation 

 of a compact head and the development of the fruit spurs near the body of the tree where 

 the future crop may be carried safely against violent storms, and reducing the liability 

 of the limbs being broken and split to pieces. This work may be done safely at any 

 time during the time that the tree is dormant. Nor can a lack of care in this regard 

 while the tree is young be overcome in after years by any subsequent effort to make 

 good lost opportunities. 



As a subject of no less importance, oftentimes involving the health and even the 

 vitality of the tree itself, is the proper thinning of the fruit. The average quality 

 rarely sells at anything over average prices, which are often very low, while large, 

 finely-developed fruit, only bring prices that afford the profit, and such fruit is not 

 found on trees over-loaded beyond their power to properly mature. 



In every department of nature the effort of reproduction so taxes vital forces as to 

 make it a weakening process, nor in all of our fruits is this more manifest than in the 

 plum, which is so often depleted from a single year's over-production, as to never 

 recover from the injuries so intiicted. 



Do not be deceived. It is not the production of the fruit, but the perfection of the 

 pit to perpetrate its species, that reduces the vital powers of the plant, and often leads 

 to premature death.' Hence, we say after the droppings which usually follow the set- 

 ting of a large crop of fruit, the wise plum-grower will see to it that a large portion of 

 that which remains is removed, the result of which will be an increase in the quantity 

 fit for market, quality greatly improved, and trees unimpaired in vigor that at once 

 upon the removal of the crop begin to store up the necessary material for its repetition. 



A lack of the exercise of common sense, coupled with the greed of man to attempt to 

 eat more than he can digest, has destroyed or rendered worthless more plum trees 

 than all other causes that can suggest themselves to human minds. Unimpaired con- 

 stitutional vigor, in the tree as in the man, is required in the attainment of the object, 

 in its broadest and best sense, for which either were created. 



So closely connected with the question of thinning is the time of picking, that the 

 two should be considered together; hence, we say, at the earliest possible moment 

 after fully grown, colored and sufficiently matured to answer the purposes for which 

 intended, or the markets designed for, pick and ship, although a week later might show 

 a material advancement in price. They will ripen to a certain extent after being 

 picked, and at this stage of maturity will stand up well for distant shipment, while the 

 overburdened trees, with the relief offered, will begin to recuperate, and the processes 

 of nature set at work to restore the exhaustion incident to the product and equip itself 

 for making another crop. Certainly no mistake will be made in working on this line. 

 Preventives are much more potent than are any attempts to repair damages already 

 accomplished. 



But, while every one is thinking of the plum, let our attention be directed to the 

 cherry, the pear, the peach, and the to-day greatly-neglected apple— that most valued 

 of all fruits — not one orchard of which in one hundred is receiving even decent care in 



