PLUMS IN SOUTH DAKOTA. 385 



PLUMS IN SOUTH DAKOTA. 



OLIVER GIBBS, JR., PRESCOTT, WIS. 



In the season of 1886 I had a revelation in plums, there being a 

 gfreat many wild ones in all stag'es of growth on my place. With 

 the apple trees brought from the Jewell Nursery and planted in the 

 spring of 1896, were a few De Soto plum trees top-worked on the 

 native stocks common to Minnesota. These were to be my main 

 reliance for plums, as I supposed, unless Prof. Budd's Russians 

 should prove valuable. In the spring the masses of bloom from 

 the wild plume, standing in thickets all around us, and their de- 

 licious perfume, were a delight that of itself would seem to repay 

 their protection, and I was filled with remorse for some work I had 

 done among them with the axe the previous winter. But when 

 their fruit ripened in August and September we found we had a 

 California of our own, ready-made for us. Nature's own cunning 

 hand had done it all— climate, soil, distribution, growth, every- 

 thing just right, needing only a little help from man to repair his 

 own disturbances of the balance of nature, such as fencing out 

 cattle and destroying tent caterpillars, left to breed when the birds 

 had been killed off or driven away. There were plums ripening in 

 succession for six weeks, large, showy plums for hand eating and 

 for dessert, plums for jelly, for canning and for plum butter, plums 

 soft for near market, but bearing delicate handling well, and other 

 plums for distant shipping if necessary, plums that the local mar- 

 ket wanted at $2.00 per bushel and could never get enough of when 

 offered in good condition, in attractive packages — plums that will 

 today owtsell the California plums in Minneapolis and St. Paul and 

 anywhere else this side of the Rocky Mountains where they are 

 known; and these plums are common to all South Dakota (not local 

 prodigies) and will do well if intelligently planted and cared for on 

 any farm in the state. 



In 1887 and in subsequent years I made efforts on a small scale 

 to increase my stock of plums by transplanting from the thickets, 

 by growing seedlings from pits of the best sorts and by top work- 

 ing. All these methods succeeded fairly well, and for several years 

 past we have had good pickings from these new trees. I could not 

 tell without further trial whether any of them are better than those 

 I had before, although these are quite promising, evidently crosses. 

 In some cases there are close reproductions of varieties, enough so 

 to satisfy me that by careful attention one could secure a good 

 plum orchard from pits alone. The trees themselves I think will 

 be better. Inferior seedlings may be top-worked. Any farmers' boy 

 can do this with a little instruction, which he can get from a twenty- 

 five cent manual on fruit propagation and culture if he has nobody 

 to show him how, and I know no cheap book of this kind that is bet- 

 ter than Prof. Green's "Amateur Fruit Growing." 



The sexuality of plum blossoms must be carefully studied. They 

 are very much like the strawberry in that respect, some perfectly 

 bisexual, many imperfectly so, and perhaps others entirely pistil- 

 late. Of this we are sure : some, the De Soto for instance, are per- 

 fect in bloom, strong, independent, good pollenizers for their own 



