ORIGIN OF A NEW AND IMPROVED 



FRENCH PRUNE VARIETY 



A. D. Shamel 



THE French prune, Primus domes- 

 tica, commonly called the petite 

 prune d'Agen or little French 

 prune, was introduced into Cali- 

 fornia in 1856 by Louis Pellier, a 

 nurseryman of San Jose, who brought 

 the scions from Ville Neuve d'Agen, 

 France, from which place the variety 

 takes its name. The commercial de- 

 velopment of this prune in California 

 started about 1880. In 1918, according 

 to the California State Commission of 

 Horticulture, there were 100,721 acres 

 of prune trees in bearing and 34,690 

 acres of young trees not in bearing. The 

 production amounted to 39,127 tons 

 with an approximate valuation of $5,- 

 500,000. The Santa Clara valley is the 

 center of greatest production, having 

 about 60.500 acres of bearing prune 

 trees. In 1919 the very heavy crops, to- 

 gether with the high prices being paid 

 for prunes, seem likely to estabhsh a 

 high record both for the amount and 

 value of the crop. 



During recent years the prune in- 

 dustry has developed extensively in the 

 Pacific northwest, particularly in the 

 states of Oregon, W^ashington and 

 Idaho. Formerly, the growth of the 

 prune industry was slow in these dis- 

 tricts on account of difficulties in drying 

 the fruits under natural climatic con- 

 ditions. Recently, the drying of the 

 fruits has been done successfully under 

 controlled conditions with hot, dry air 

 as the source of heat in the evaporators. 

 This development seems likely to lead 

 to an extensive culture of the prune in 

 the northwest, where drying under 

 natural conditions is frequently inter- 

 fered with by fog and rain. 



The Prune d'Agen variety, most gen- 

 erally grown in California, is particu- 

 larly well adapted for prune produc- 

 tion on account of the rich, aromatic 



flavor of its fruits, the dense, fine tex- 

 ture of the flesh, which gives the cured 

 fruits tenderness both when used as a 

 confection and when slightly cooked, 

 and the smallness of the pits, together 

 with their thinness and smoothness. 

 The dried fruits frequently contain 

 more than 50% of fruit sugars. Cor- 

 related with this sugar content is a high 

 degree of spicy prune flavor. The color 

 of the fruits of this variety is a royal 

 purple, which is an important factor in 

 the successful marketing of the dried 

 prunes. The delicious, melting flesh 

 separates easily from the small flat pit. 



The trees of this variety are heavy 

 bearers under normal conditions. Some 

 fruit is usually borne the third year 

 after planting. From the fifth year on, 

 the trees may be expected to produce 

 commercial crops. From 200 to 300 

 pounds are considered to be a satisfac- 

 tory yield for a full-bearing French 

 prune tree. However, 600 and even 800 

 pounds have been produced, and a six- 

 year-old tree at Visalia, Cal., is said to 

 have borne 1,102 pounds of fruit in 

 one season. 



The tendency to heavy bearing is fre- 

 quently correlated with small size of 

 fruits, particularly when the crops are 

 not thinned at the proper time. If too 

 much bearing wood is grown, the fruits 

 are likely to be too small for satisfactory 

 commercial purposes. For this reason 

 there has been an active demand among 

 prune growers for a larger French prune 

 having the valuable characteristics of 

 the established variety. Until recently 

 all efforts to achieve this result seem to 

 have been failures. The trouble with 

 the larger fruited varieties, as a rule,. 

 is that the fruits are likely to be of poor 

 quality, coarse, and stringy in flesh, or 

 have large, undesirable pits. 



Leonard Coates, nurseryman and 



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