10 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. 



midsummer, to prevent the flow of gum. Old trees that have become 

 barren may be renovated by heading them in pretty severely, cover- 

 ing the wounds with a solution of gum shellac, and giving them a 

 good toi)-dressing at the roots. 



Soil : The plum will grow vigorou.sly in almost every part of this 

 country, but it only bears its finest and most abundant crops in heavy 

 loams or in soils in which there is a considerable mixture of clay. In 

 sandy soil the tree blossoms and sets i:)lentiful crops, but they are 

 rarely perfected, falling a prey to the curculio, an insect that harbors 

 in the soil and seems to find it difficult to penetrate or live in one of a 

 heavy texture, while a warm, light, sandy soil is exceedingly favorable 

 to its propagation. It is also undoubtedly true that a heavy soil is 

 naturally the most favorable one. The surprising facility with which 

 superior new varieties are raised merely by ordinary reproduction 

 from seed in certain parts of the valley of the Hudson, as at Hudson 

 or near Albany, where the soil is quite clayey, and also the delicious 

 flavor and great jiroductiveness and health of the plum tree there, al- 

 most without any care, while in adjacent districts on rich sandy land it 

 is a very uncertain bearer, are very convincing proofs of the great im- 

 portance of clayey soil for this fruit.* When the whole soil of a place 

 is light and sandy, we would recommend the employment of pure yel- 

 low loam or yellow clay in place of manure when preparing the border 

 or .spaces for planting the plum. Very heavy clay, burned slowly by 

 mixing in large heaps with brush or fagots, is, at once, an admirable 

 manure and alterative for such .soils. Swamp mufck is also one of the 

 best substances, and esr)ecially that from salt-water marshes. Com- 

 mon salt we have found one of the best fertilizers for the plum tree. 

 It generally i3romotes its health and luxuriance. 



Insects and Diseases : There are but two drawbacks to the culti- 

 vation of the plum in the United States, but they are in some districts 

 so great as almost to destroy the value of this tree. These are the 

 curculio and the knots. The curculio, or plum-weevil { BJiync/icenv.'i 

 nenuphar), is the uncompromising foe of all smooth-stone fruits. 

 The cultivator of the plum, the nectarine, and the ajiricot, in many 

 l^arts of the country, after a flattering profusion of snowy blossoms 

 and an abundant i^romise in the thickly set young crops of fruit, has 

 the frequent mortification of seeing nearly all, or indeed, often, the 

 whole croj), fall from the trees when half or two-thirds grown. If he 

 examines these fallen fruits he will perceive on the surface of each, 

 not far from the stalk, a small semicircular scar. This scar is the 



* When this was written it was generally supposed that the curculio would not 

 attack the fruit of plums growing on trees in clayey soil, but practical experience 

 has shown that such is not the fact. — Reviser. 



