132 Appendix. 



hilled lands, was unfavorable to the curculio, the blighting pest of the 

 East that had discouraged plum and prune growing in the States east, 

 of the Rockies. Mr. Brandon, however, was growing successfully a 

 forty-acre orchard of Reine Claude plums on heavy clay land in New- 

 York, and was reaping a golden hai-vest from the green products in 

 New York City market. 



Another correspondent. Prof. C. V. Riley, then State Entomologist 

 of Missouri, afterwards Government Entomologist at Washington, had 

 written me that the curculio did her work at night, and only when the- 

 thermometer was above 75 degrees F.; lower, she was chilled and could 

 not work. This enthused us. As our nights are uniformly below that 

 temperature, I concluded, and yet think correctly, we should not be- 

 troubled with that pest, the one pest that had discouraged the growing 

 of plums and prunes in the East. We have no doubt often had the- 

 cui'culio imported from the East in soil about plants, but up to date I 

 have not seen or heard of a curculio on the Pacific Coast. 



I set one thousand Italian prunes, and — with the idea of filling in 

 the drying season from the eai'ly peach-plum to the Italian prune — 

 successively for some years I set out the following varieties : Five 

 hundred late peach-plums, five hundred Washington, five hundred Jeffer- 

 son, five hundred Columbia, five hundred Pond's, five hundred Reine 

 Claude, fifteen hundred French prunes, twelve hundred Coe's Golden' 

 Drop; cultivated — plowed twice, hoed around trees twice, harrowed four 

 times, and finished with clod-crusher and leveler, made of six-inch fir 

 poles, five pieces six feet long, spaced six inches apart, two-by-four 

 scantling spiked to ends, which has to this time proven the best imple- 

 ment for this purpose, and seems to me almost indispensable as a finish- 

 ing tool in cultivating our clay hill soil. 



The winter of 1878 was cold, the thermometer falling to zero, with 

 stormy northeast winds for weeks, ending with a heavy snow storm. 

 The cambium wood froze and turned dark, almost black, the bark burst 

 loose almost entirely on many trees, particularly the peach-plums. 

 Over in Clark County, Washington, and about Portland, we thought 

 our trees were killed; yet, in the spring, to our surprise, they nearly- 

 all grew and seemed not injured, excepting on the southwest the bark 

 of the peach-plum died, as judged, on account of the warm 2 o'clock 

 sun while the trees were yet frozen. In a few years the damage was 

 scarcely noticed. 



The first year of bearing I sent two carloads of peach-plums, 

 wrapped in papers and carefully packed in twenty-pound boxes, to the 

 Chicago market. The weather was warm in transit, they were delayed, 

 and arrived in bad condition, and were sold for about the freight bill, 

 commission, and other charges. I made other ventures of this kind 

 and learned in the dear school of experience that the peach-plum did 

 not carry well, and could not be profitably shipped so far east. Our 

 commission merchants tried many such experiments, and I do not know 



