228 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTLK AL aOCIETY. 



THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR NATIVE PLUMS. 



PROF. E. P. SAXDSTEX, UXRERSITY OF WISCONSIN, M-\DISON, WIS. 



It is sometimes interesting and profitable to look backward 

 upon tlie history and development of certain fruits, and to see 

 where improvements have been made and where mistakes could 

 have been avoided. This taking stock, as it were, is not only help- 

 ful but important, as it gives us a better understanding how certain 

 fruits have developed and along what line the development has 

 been most rapid. It is true in plant improvement, as well as in other 

 lines of work, that advancements are made not often along the 

 lines of least resistance but along lines which have been started by 

 some person or persons. We are by nature imitators, and if a start 

 is made by some method, this method is invariably followed by 

 others. 



In the improvement of our native plums this fact is very evi- 

 dent. The first trees or seedlings were taken from the woods and 

 placed under domestic conditions, and through the influence of 

 culture considerable improvement resulted. Seeds again were taken 

 from these wild trees, and by more or less careful selection new 

 varieties were produced. Then, too, it was first thought that be- 

 cause the plums in their native state are growing in clumps or in 

 thickets that they would naturally do better under such conditions 

 under cultivation, and hence we find that the early plantations were 

 planted on this plan. 



Up to comparatively recent time little or no systematic breeding 

 has been done ; consequently we have a small number of crosses, 

 or hybrids, as compared with the number of seedlings. 



At the Wisconsin Experiment Station work was started about 

 fifteen years ago by the late Professor E. S. GofT, who had great 

 faith in the development and future of the native plum. A great 

 number of seedlings have been grown in the station orchards, up- 

 wards of eighty thousand, during these intervening years. About 

 eight hundred of these seedlings are still growing, though most of 

 these are waiting for the hatchet. The parents of these seedlings 

 were grown in tlie orchards with the hope that they might cross 

 and that some trees from such crosses might show an increase in 

 size and quality-. 



The result of the work today while not discouraging is never- 

 theless not commensurate with the amount of labor bestowed upon 

 it. Out of the total number of eighty thousand seedlings, we have 

 four or five which would be considered satisfactory and superior 

 to the existing named varieties. 



