228 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



THE MANKATO PLUM. 



DANIEL BUCK, MANKATO. 



As I reside in the city of Mankato, after which this phim was 

 named, I became greatly interested in it and took steps to ascertain 

 its origin. 



The seed of a German prune was many years ago brought from 

 Germany to Buflfalo, N. Y.. and there planted, and from fruit 

 grown from the trees raised from these seeds thus planted sprung 

 the prune now known as the Mankato plum. 



My authority for this statement is Mrs. Mary Eider, now living 

 in North Mankato, who says that her father, Louis Dentinger, in 

 1866, brought some of the trees and seed to Mankato, and her hus- 

 band, Louis J. Eider, planted some of them on their farm about 

 four miles north of IMankato, in Nicollet County, where they are 

 still growing and are quite large trees. In the fall of 1901, I 

 visited these trees and examined them; they Avere loaded with 

 very fine large plums and appeared to be very hardy, and were 

 standing in an exposed location. 



One Peter Schmatz, a neighbor of the Eiders, procured some 

 of these plums from them and raised trees, and S. D. Richardson, 

 the nurseryman, obtaining a quantity of this variety of plums from 

 Schmatz, put them on the market for sale. They have been ad- 

 vertised by some men as natives of Minnesota, but they are not 

 the wild plum of this state. I never heard that Mr. Richardson 

 claimed them to be our wild plum. 



They' are very fine plums and worthy of cultivation. Prof. Gofif 

 describes them as follows: 

 Mankato — P. americana. 



Fruit very slightly oblong, inclining to truncate at stem end, 

 suture rather distinct; dull red, densely dotted with very minute 

 yellowish specks; fiesh yellow, sometimes red next the stone, sweet 

 and rich; skin rather thick, with very slight harshness, easily sep- 

 arable from the fiesh; stone thick with convex sides, rounded at 

 ends, obscurely margined; semi-cling; season late; leaves medium, 

 broad, smooth, sharp serrate, glandless. Tree thrifty, symmetrical, 

 fairly productive, bears young. 



It will be observed that he describes them as a late plum. 

 They were not so in the season of 1901, for I know personally that 

 they were fully ripe quite early in the season, and of very good 

 quality. 



The tree is apparently as hardy as our native wild plums. 



