356 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



in Iowa it is said not to bear abtindantly. If a native plum is wanted in 

 New York, this variety is worthy a trial. 



Surprise, according to the originator, IMartin Penning of Sleepy Eye, 

 Brown County, Minnesota, is the best of a thousand or more seedlings 

 grown from pits of De Soto, Weaver and Miner sown in 1882. In 1889, 

 Penning introduced this plum and ten years later it was added to the 

 fruit catalog list of the American Pomological Society. The parentage of 

 the variety is unknown but it has usually been thought that the botanical 

 characters indicate that it is a seedling of Miner. As the tree grows here, 

 (they came to the Station from Mr. Penning,) it appears to be a hybrid 

 of Prunus americana and Prunus hortulana mineri, characters of both 

 species being evident. 



Tree large, vigorous, upright, dense-topped, hardy, productive; trunk roughish; 

 branches smooth, zigzag, thorny, dark ash-gray, with numerous, small lenticels; branch- 

 lets slender, medium to long, with long intemodes, green changing to dark chestnut- 

 red, with brownish-gray scarf-skin, glossy, glabrous, with numerous, conspicuous, 

 small, raised lenticels; leaf-buds small, short, obtuse, plump, appressed. 



Leaves falling early, folded upward, oval or ovate, two inches wide, four and one- 

 half inches long, thin; upper surface light green, glabrous, smooth, with a grooved 

 midrib; lower surface pale green, lightly pubescent ; apex taper-pointed, base abrupt, 

 margin often coarsely and doubly serrate, with amber glands which are not persistent; 

 petiole thirteen-sixteenths inch long, slender, reddish, sparingly pubescent along one 

 side, glandless or with from one to five small, globose, yellowish-brown glands usually 

 on the stalk. 



Blooming season intermediate in time and length; flowers appearing with the 

 leaves, three-quarters inch across, creamy-white, with a disagreeable odor; borne in 

 clusters from lateral buds, in threes or in fours; pedicels three-eighths inch long, slender, 

 glabrous, green; calyx-tube greenish, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes narrow, 

 acute, pubescent on the inner surface, serrate and with reddish glands, erect; petals 



pioneer work in spraying plants and invented a device for mixing kerosene and water. In 18S9 Pro- 

 fessor Goff moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he became professor of horticulture in the University 

 of Wisconsin and horticulturist of the Wisconsin E.xperiment Station. Here for fourteen years he 

 gave his attention to various phases of fruit-growing and vegetable-growing. His bulletin 87 on 

 " Native Plums " is the outcome of several years' experiments in testing and breeding plums of such 

 of our native species as will grow in Wisconsin. His work with plums is particularly valuable, as 

 he was able, in his location, to do much to ascertain the degree of hardiness of many varieties 

 of the species of cultivated plums. From his work with sterility and fertility of varieties came 

 valuable recommendations regarding the cross-pollination of such varieties as are self-sterile. He 

 is the author of Principles of Plant Culture and Lessons on Fruit-growing, text books much used in 

 high schools and agricultural colleges. Professor Goff was a modest and retiring man but singu- 

 larly independent of view in all things regarding his work and all things that concerned men — 

 a serene, lofty-minded, unselfish man. His death occurred at Madison, June 6th, 1903. 



