THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



CHAPTER II 



PLUM CULTURE. 



Ten states produced over 82 per ct. of the plum crop of the United 

 States in 1899. The census of 1900 shows that in the preceding year the 

 total crop in the country was 8,764,032 bushels of which California, Oregon. 

 New York, Washington, Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Arkansas, Ohio and 

 Kansas, named in order of yield, produced 7,429,248 bushels. All 

 other states yielded 1,334,784 bushels. Of these ten states, three, California, 

 Oregon and Washington, holding first, second and fourth places in produc- 

 tion, use by far the greater parts of their crops for prunes. Four others, 

 Iowa, Texas, Arkansas and Kansas, grow the native and Trifiora varieties 

 almost exclusively. New York with a crop of 313,668 bushels in 1899, 

 Michigan with 213,682 bushels the same year and Ohio with 81,435 bushels, 

 grew the main crop of Domesticas for the states in which plums are not 

 made into prunes. 



At the end of the Nineteenth Centiiry the plum ranked third in com- 

 mercial value among orchard products, being surpassed by the apple and 

 the peach. The increase in number of trees and bushels of fruit for the 

 whole country for the decade ending with 1899 was remarkable, being for 

 trees 334.9 per ct. and for bushels of fruit 243.1 per ct. These great in- 

 creases were due to very large planting of plums for prunes on the Pacific 

 Coast and to the widespread distribution dtiring these ten years of native 

 and Trifiora varieties. It is very doubtful if the percentage of increase 

 has been nearly so great during the present decade. It is likely that the 

 development of rapid transportation and refrigerator service betw^een the 

 great plum-growing region of the far West and the markets of the East has 

 caused a decrease in trees and production in the eastern states. 



Plum-growing, as with the growing of all fniits, is confined to localities 

 geologically, climatically and commercially adapted to the industry. If 

 we take New York as an example we find that plums are grown largely 

 only in ten of the sixty-one covm ties, according to the census of 1900. These 

 with the number of trees in each are as follows: Niagara 184,133, Ontario 

 92,917, Seneca 59,205, Monroe 57,246, Schuyler 48,'336, Orleans 41,985, 

 Yates 32,742, Albany 32,373, Erie 30,281, Wayne 30,047. Over 62 per 

 ct. of all the trees in the State are in these counties and probably they 

 produce more than 90 per ct. of the plums sent to market. 



