Ys Mas ANN EMC A ENS RLM TIN atta ice ky 
moe P 
178 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. # 
THE BEST METHOD OF PROPAGATING PLUMS. 
JOHN NORDINE, LAKE CITY. 
When I was invited by the secretary of our society to furnish a 
paper on this subject, I hesitated at first, thinking that my limited 
experience would prevent my handling this subject in as satisfactory 
a manner as could be done by some one of larger experience, but on 
reading the invitation more carefully, I noticed these words: ‘Let 
us come together and give our experience.” 
During the past sixteen years,in which I have been engaged as 
propagator for the Jewell Nursery Co.,we have employed three dif- 
ferent methods of propagating plums, viz: root-grafting, budding 
and crown-grafting; hence, my experience is limited to these three . 
methods. 
When employing the first method, root-grafting,we always did this 
immediately after we had completed our apple-grafting, which was 
usually about the first of March. We used stocks grown from seed 
gathered trom our native plums. This seed was washed free from 
the pulp and laid in the shade for three or four days until it became 
dry enough to handle, when it was planted. At the close of the fol- 
lowing season, we had a fine stand of nice, healthy seedlings, of 
fairly uniform caliber, the size being about that of an ordinary lead 
pencil. In the fall, we dug these roots, packing them in sand in our 
cellars. The scions were also cutin the fall, placed in the cellar, 
and packed in sawdust fresh from the mill. The method of graft- 
ing was what is ordinarily called “ whip-grafting.” The grafts were 
well wrapped at the point of the union with waxed paper and then 
packed in sand in boxes specially made for this purpose. These we 
keptin cold storage until the following spring, when the grafts 
were set out as soon as the ground was in proper condition. The 
weather wasexceptionally favorable at that time,and we hoped to se- 
cure a fine stand of plums, but we were rudely awakened from this 
sweet dream. On examining the grafts laterin the season, we found 
they had thrown out numerous sprouts from the roots, while the 
scions still appeared to be nearly dormant. Ata great expenditure 
of time and labor, we removed all these sprouts, thereby encourag- 
ing about thirty-four per cent of the grafts to start. They lacked 
vigor, however, and grew very slowly, and the bodies being very 
slender they bent and whipped in all directions,and when three 
years old and ready to go on the market, they were an extremely 
crooked and unsatisfactory lot of trees. 
This experience was rather discouraging, and we hardly knew 
what method to adopt for our next attempt in this line, but after con- 
sidering the matter from all standpoints we finally concluded that 
our scions might have been cut too early. We therefore grafted our 
plums the next year in exactly the same manner, except that we cut 
scions in the spring instead of in the fall. This, however, was not 
mnch of an improvment over our first trial,as we only dug about 
forty-seven per cent of this planting. 
Now, we were fully determined that our next attempt in propagat- 
ing plums should be nothing short of success, so finding ourselves 
