THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



33^ 



Rollingstone was found near an old Indian camping ground on the 

 Rollingstone Creek, Winona County, Minnesota, by Mr. O. M. Lord,' 

 Minnesota City, about 1852. Mr. Lord planted trees of this plum in his 

 garden and found that they improved greatly tmder cultivation, so much 

 so that they soon became very popular in the local market. About 1882 

 he introduced the Rollingstone to fruit-growers in general. Mr. H. M. 

 Thompson of St. Francis, according to the Minnesota Horticultural Society 

 Report for 1885, sent this plum out under the name Minnesota but for- 

 tunately it has not been distributed under its synonym widely enough to 

 cause much confusion. In 1897 the American Pomological Society added 

 Rollingstone to its fruit catalog list. 



Tree dwarfish, variable in vigor, spreading, flat-topped, hardy, productive, healthy; 

 trunk shaggy; branches dark ash-gray, thorny, rough, zigzag, with numerous, rather 

 large lenticels; branchlets slender, twiggy, medium to short, with intemodes of average 

 length, greenish turning to dark brown, glossy, glabrous, with conspicuous, small, 

 raised lenticels; leaf -buds medium in size and length, appressed. 



Leaves falling early, folded upward, obovate or long-ovate, one and one-half inches 

 wide, three and one-half inches long, thin; upper surface smooth, glabrous, with a narrow 

 groove on the midrib; lower surface silvery green, lightly pubescent, the veins prominent; 



' Orville Morell Lord was bom in China, Wyoming County, New York, April 20, 1826. When 

 he was eleven years of age the Lord family moved to Lapeer, Michigan, where the subject of this 

 sketch attended the district school and then for a time was in a private school at Pontiac, 

 Michigan. In 1852 Mr. Lord moved to Winona County, Minnesota, where he built a saw mill, 

 and for some years owned and managed a lumber yard. It was only after middle life that he 

 became interested in horticulture and he then chose the native plums as fruits with which to 

 work. He was not a breeder of plums and the Rollingstone, brought in from the wild and 

 sent out by him in 1882, is the only addition to pomology, in the way of a new variety, 

 made by him. The work with this fruit which has given him a name as a plum specialist was 

 in testing hardy varieties. He tried thoroughly all the native plums to be obtained, and 

 much of the present information as to the hardiness of plums for the cold northwest is due 

 to knowledge gained from Mr. Lord's experimental orchard. He became a member of the 

 Minnesota State Horticultural Society in 1884 and in 1889 was made an honorary life member of 

 this organization. For some years he was a Farmers' Institute lecturer on horticulture and was 

 for a time horticultural editor of Farm, Stock and Home. He was not only known in the Northwest 

 as a plum specialist but carried on correspondence with plum growers throughout the whole country 

 giving much valuable information regarding this fruit. Beside giving attention to plums he tested 

 many apples for his region and was the originator of one or two varieties now very generally grown 

 in his State. During his life he filled several places of public trust, being a member of the Terri- 

 torial Legislature in 1853-4 and of the State Legislature in 1873-4. He also served at various times 

 in minor offices in his County and in his State being at the time of his death a member of the Forest 

 Reserve Board of Minnesota. With Peter Gideon he was one of the pioneer fruit-growers in the 

 Northwest and while he has left few fruits of his own breeding and few records in print of the work 

 he did, yet his long and faithful service in developing fruit-growing in the Northwest makes him one 

 of the men of note in American pomology. Mr. Lord died July 21, 1906. 



