294 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
HARVESTING AND MARKETING THE PLUM CROP. 
HENRY DUNSMORE, OLIVIA. 
Nearly all varieties of native plums bore a full crop the past season, 1899, 
which ripened evenly and free from disease and insects. Japan plums had 
no crop, as the severe frost of last winter killed all of the fruit buds. 
All varieties of plums should be gathered by hand and should receive 
as much care in handling and packing as other fruits of a like nature. In 
gathering we use a basket of convenient size and with the aid of a step- 
ladder reach the higher fruit. 
We have never shipped plums to a distant market, as we find ready sale 
in our home markets for all the plums we can grow, using the common 
half-bushel baskets in hauling them to market. Japan plums should be 
gathered before they are fully ripe and placed in a well ventilated cellar for 
one week before they are in their best condition to market. I refer to a 
home market, but if I was shipping to a distant market I would prefer to 
put them in a cellar at least two days, as it takes considerable time before 
the most pleasing taste is noticeable. 
Native plums should be allowed to remain on the trees until fully ripe, 
when they should be gathered and placed in a cellar for two days, aiter 
which they will be in good condition for market. 
Whether cellar treatment improves the quality of the plum for all pur- 
poses for which it is used I will not prentend to say, but will leave for this 
body to decide. But one thing we know from experience, that persons who 
taste before they buy will invariably prefer plums that have had cellar treat- 
ment. 
Plum growing in Renville county has been somewhat discouraged from 
the fact that nearly three-fourths of all varieties planted have been De Soto, 
Unlike all of the other natives in cultivation, De Soto is not doing well in 
this vicinity. The tree is healthy, but its fruiting qualities don’t come up to 
the standard; even with good cultivation ‘its fruit seldom attains a size 
larger than the commonest specimens to be found in the woods, while most 
of the other natives, such as Cheney, Forest Garden and Weaver, will pro- 
duce fruit equal in size to that grown anywhere in the state. If one would 
ask a farmer in this vicinity if he had any plum trees, in nine cases out of 
ten the reply would be, “Well, yes. I bought some tame plum trees, but 
they sent me wild plums.” Investigation will always disclose the fact that 
the trees which he considers wild are none other than De Soto. On the 
other hand, if he should be fortunate enough to get a few trees of any 
other variety he will be quite willing to admit he has got a tame plum. 
Secy. Latham: The first year I was in Minnesota on the farm 
of a relative of mine near Chaska there were the most beautiful 
plums. That was in the fall of 1865. I admired them greatly, and the 
quality seemed to me to be the very best. They were wonderful in 
size, and we called them as large as eggs. They were extraordinary 
plums and grew in such a location as Mr. Dunsmore de- 
scribes, down on an island in a marsh, and they did wonderfully 
well there. I do not know what became of them. I have no- 
ticed on my own place that the plums that attained size and the 
trees that bore with sufficient prolifteness to be profitable were 
