188 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



dant crops, in heavy loams or in soils in which there is a considerable mixture 

 of clay. It also does most excellently in good, sandy soils, mixed with gravel, 

 if properly fertilized, bearing immense crops of perfect, highly colored, and 

 well developed fruit; and, too, it is more exempt from rot than on heavy, 



damp soils. 



Marketing the fruit is a very important matter to consider, especially if we 

 have to deal with or deliver it to express companies to handle and dump 

 about. Fruit of this class should be handled with the utmost care, as much 

 so as you would handle a package of eggs, and not dumped around as farm 

 produce or lumber. 



To reach its best condition, the plum must be ripened upon the tree, but 

 when shipped a long distance, and for market, it cannot be allowed to ripen 

 on the tree, but must be picked while yet hard. Pick the fruit with care, to 

 retain the bloom on it as much as possible. Put up for market in neat and 

 attractive packages, either one-fifth or bushel baskets, always covered with a 

 fine quality of tarletan, and not mosquito netting as some are accustomed to 

 use, and you will have fruit you need not fear to offer in any market. 



Of insects we have the curculio, black aphis, and leaf slug; but of all the 

 curculio is the most destructive insect we have to combat with. Never having 

 the experience, or believing it to be effectual, in the use of spraying the trees 

 with water containing Paris green or London purple, I would simply refer to 

 the mode of jarring the trees with the sheet and mallet for destroying this 

 troublesome pest. For the aphis, use strong soap suds or kerosene emulsion, 

 and for the leaf slug I find air-slaked lime or dry dust to prove effectual. 

 Fight the insects with vengeance and keep all fallen fruit picked up and 

 destroyed, and you will meet with success. 



lleplying to questions, Mr. Gebhardt said the bearing age of plum trees 

 varies from three to five and even eight years; how long they live I cannot 

 say ; they are hardy enough, so far, in western Michigan at least, but seem to 

 do better on plum roots than on those of the peach ; my trees have borne full 

 crops when peaches failed. 



Mr. Lannin said he knew of bearing trees thirty years old. 

 Mr. Hamilton had understood that some varieties of plum do best on peach 

 roots. 



Mr. Gebhardt: I admit it is so claimed, but I speak of my own experience. 

 I have the same kind of trees on both kinds of root, and those on plum do 

 much the better. 



G. Richards: I have some Wild Goose plums that have never borne much. 

 [A voice: "They never will."] But I have read that the Miner grafted into 

 Wild Goose tops will fertilize them. 



11. Morrill knew of some old trees which are every year a bank of bloom but 

 never bear a plum. 



D. R. Crane of Fennville stated that he had a number of Chickasaw plum 

 trees which bear fully every year, but he has four sorts, including Wild Goose, 

 growing near each other. 



Mr. Lannin had read that the Miner and Wild Goose bloom together, while 

 the European sorts are a few days later and hence will not fertilize the 

 Chickasaws. 



It was agreed by several that the plan of grafting Miner into Wild Goose 

 tops was an excellent one, likely to fully provide for fertilization. 



