170 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



Hort. Man. 308. 1903. 14. Ga, Sta. Bid. 68:11, 28. 1905. 15. Ohio Sta. Bui. 162:256. 1905. 

 16. DeVries Plant Breeding 170. 1907. 



Persing Nos. i & 2, 13. Russian plum 20M. 4. Wassu 4. Wassu 9. 



Probably Abundance holds first place among the Triflora plums in 

 New York but Burbank is a close second and in many localities has first 

 preference. Abiindance is in the lead chiefly because the trees of this 

 variety are larger and better formed and bear more fruit than those of 

 Burbank. To offset the advantages of Abundance the fruit of Burbank 

 is of better quality, more handsomely colored, keeps and ships better 

 and is less susceptible to brown-rot. The fruit of Burbank ripens a week 

 or more later than that of Abundance, which in most seasons is a slight 

 advantage for the first -named variety. The trees of this plum are distin- 

 guished from those of all other plums by their low, spreading habit, flat 

 top and somewhat drooping branches, characters which make them more 

 or less difficult to handle in the orchard and very difficult to manage in 

 the nursery. The wood of Burbank is brittle, true of all Trifloras, but a 

 serious defect in this one. In common with other varieties of its species, 

 Burbank is less troubled with curculio and black -knot than the European 

 plums. The fruit of this variety begins to color some days before ripe and 

 should be picked before fully matured if it is to be kept or shipped. Usually 

 the best specimens of Burbank come from thinned trees and thinning is 

 a necessary operation in all commercial orchards. The variety does not 

 thrive in the South, being poor in quality and rotting badly. In New York, 

 Burbank is not being planted nearly so largely as a few years ago, the 

 Domesticas being much more profitable than this or other Triflora plums. 

 It is a very desirable variety for home plantations in New York. 



Burbank was produced from a plum pit sent to Luther Burbank ' by 



' Luther Burbank, kno-rni the world over for his work in bringing into being new plant forms, 

 was bom in Lancaster, Massachusetts, March 7, 1849. He was educated in the common schools 

 and in the local academy, his school-training being supplemented by much reading in the well-stocked 

 library of which every New England town boasts. After leaving school, some time was spent in a 

 factory in Worcester, Massachusetts, but, following a strong natural inclination to work with plants, 

 he left the factory to grow vegetables and seeds. It was while so engaged that he grew the Burbank 

 potato, most widely known and most valuable, if gauged by the monetary value of the crops pro- 

 duced, of all of his new plants. In 1875 Mr. Burbank went to California and a few years later 

 began in a small way the plant-breeding nursery at Santa Rosa in which most of his work has 

 since been done. The years preceding this beginning and several following it constitute a time 

 of hard labor, sickness and of financial distress through which only a man of remarkable strength 

 of character could have lived and kept the desire to continue his work. Following a decade, more 

 or less, of difficulties after the start at Santa Rosa, Mr. Burbank's career as a world-wide figure in 

 plant-breeding may be said to have begun. One cannot briefly catalog the new forms of plants 



