384 ANKUAL EEPOBT 



they worthy of culture? It is safe to say that the majority of per- 

 sons who have planted these plums for fruity would answer this ques- 

 tion emphatically in the negative, that they are not; they being 

 forced to give this answer from the result of many trials, all resulting 

 in, perhaps, complete failures, for reasons that would be presently ex- 

 plained. But a few of us who have learned their needs, and have 

 planted them rightly, either by design or accident, have found them 

 to be very profitable, and to bear enormous crops of marketable and 

 useful fruits nearly every year, with but very little care. 



PROPAGATION. 



How should they be planted to insure regular crops of fruits? In 

 rows running north and south, with the trees four to eight feet in the 

 row, several varieties (or even species) alternating; the more varie- 

 ties the better. This is as near as we can come at it with our present 

 knowledge. The rows should be twelve to twenty feet apart. 



Why is it necessary to so plant them? Because it has been deter- 

 mined that very few of these plums can fertilize or pollen ate their 

 own flowers, and that they must receive pollen from some other vari- 

 ety or species of the Almond family, or the ovaries of the fruit will not 

 be fertilized, but will all fall from the trees when quite small. A few 

 of them are fertilized with their own pollen, but I have found none 

 but what is more productive when near another variety with acepta- 

 ble, potent pollen. Farther, we know that all varieties are not mu- 

 tually fertile when near each other. Therefore, with our present 

 knowledge we can only say as above, plant many varieties near to- 

 gether. If you were farther south we could give you a safe, simple 

 rule, meeting all cases so far as tried, namely: Plant these plums six 

 feet apart in the row, with every third tree of the variety known as 

 Miner, for it seems to have pollen fertile with all and all others with 

 it, and it is a good market plum. It is a cross between P. Americana • 

 and P. Chicasa, but as it is not hardy with you, you will have to plant 

 by the general rule given and experiment for yourselves. 



None of the Chickasaw plums' are fully fertile on my place with 

 their own pollen, or with that of other varieties of the species; there- 

 fore seeds produced on these, when fertilized by pollen of Miner or 

 any variety of P. Americana, are hybrids or crosses, and from such 

 seed I have, and you may all expect our best new plums 



The Wild Goose plum, in its peculiar characteristics, shows good 

 proofs of being a hybrid between the Chickasaw and the peach; and 



