194 BOARD OF AGKICULTURE. 



First. You must have a natural love of fruit growing, for your 

 genuine "dyed in the wool" horticulturists are, like poets, "born, not 

 made," though I am not going to say that good horticulturists can't be 

 made, for I know of a few, Mr. Davis, for instance, raises fine peaches, 

 but they are the exception, not the rule. Second. Study the plum busi- 

 ness, as I did, by talking with others and looking up the catalogues of 

 reliable dealers, and find, if you can, the kinds suited to your locality and 

 soil. Any soil will do, provided it is not wet, but a black rich sandy 

 soil is best. If very rich, so much the better, in one sense, as your 

 plums will be rich and large and luscious, and will sell quick in any 

 market, and calls for them will be many times and often. One of my 

 orchards had been an old barnyard, and such Bradshaws as we generally 

 have you never saw anywhere else. But you will have to trim and thin 

 fruit more, but it will pay. If your ground is poor and thin, don't 

 despair, make it rich with well rotted manure and wood ashes. Ashes 

 both leached and unleached, and good for all kinds of fruit. Third. We 

 must cultivate the ground, but never, never take a turning plow into 

 your orchard after your ground is nicely fitted and planted, but commence 

 in the early spring and cultivate with any good cultivator or harrow, 

 often till last of August, then sow on oats at the last dragging for winter 

 protection. You can raise potatoes or garden truck the first two years, 

 then let the trees have the ground. Trim fall and spring when trees are 

 dormant. Head low. r^Iine are mostly one and one-half and two 

 feet from the ground — better for spraying and picking the fruit. 

 Sort nicely when you send to market— never put in a poor fruit, and you 

 can get two or three dollars per bushel and no grumbling. I have more 

 orders than I can fill from our home market. Of course, you must spray. 

 I found I must, so I got two sprayers and then commenced the battle, 

 who should have the plums, the curculio, or me? One of us came off 

 second best, and it was not I, you may be sure. 



Now, this you say is hard work. So it is, and lots of it too, but if 

 you love fruit raising and have Yankee grit and perseverance to stick 

 to it, plum raising will fill your purse, sure. 



I have of the European kinds some twelve or thirteen; Japs, six, and 

 Native, two; some twenty kinds, about seventy-five trees in all. 



GROWING OF THE PLUM ON A COMMERCIAL SCALE. 



BY WALTER S. RATLIFF, RICHMOND. 



Of the large number of fruits grown at present, doubtless none is 

 perhaps of more general interest to the American people that the plum. 

 Not so much that it is a new fruit, as the wilds of our forests early 

 abounded with the wild plums and our dooryards contain to-day a goodly 



