28 THE PLUM IN KANSAS. 



upright grower, productive, and the fruit is handsome, very firm, and of good 

 quality. In general appearance the fruit is much like Burbank, but it is more 

 pointed and from one to three weeks later, and the tree, which is an upright 

 grower, is very different. Last year it ripened at the Cornell (N. Y.) station from 

 September 15 to 25. There seem to be two things passing as Chase, the other 

 one being an earlier plum and perhaps identical with Douglas. Professor Bailey 

 can detect no difference between Chabot, Bailey, Chase, and Yellow Japan, and 

 the same also passes as Hattonkin : but Chabot, being the older name, must 

 hold. 



THE NEW OCTOBER PURPLE. 



The October Purple is a splendid grower, ripens up its wood early to the tip, 

 bears every season, and fruits all over the old wood on spurs, instead of away out 

 on the branches, like many other kinds. Fruit very large and uniform in size. 

 It is a superb variety. The fruit is described as measuring a trifle over seven 

 inches in circumference, and shows long-keeping quality. The fruit is round in 

 form: color a reddish purple — a little darker than the Bradshaw; flesh yellow, 

 and in quality superb: stone small. The tree is a strong, erect grower, forming 

 a nice, shapely head, something like Abundance in this respect, but more sym- 

 metrical and shapely. Its season of ripening is about a month later than Abun- 

 dance or Burbank, or from the middle to last of September. Its large, even size 

 and beautiful color, late season in ripening, long-keeping and superb quality will 

 make it a very desirable variety for the garden or for the market. — American 

 Gardening, 



JAPANESE PLUMS IN NEW JERSEY. 



That the advent of the Japanese plum has caused renewed interest in plum 

 culture throughout the country there is no doubt. For many years previous, 

 home-grown plums were a rarity. What with curculio, rot, and black knot, it 

 was more than the average farmer cared to undertake to produce fruit. Not that 

 these enemies need frighten the one determined to win. New York fruit-growers 

 have been growing plums successfully for years, before and since the introduc- 

 tion of the Japanese sorts. But the average farmer who sets out a few trees for 

 family use desires something that will take care of itself after being planted, which 

 this plum will not do. 



Those who were the first to set out Japanese plums soon came to believe that 

 they had found a kind to resist the curculio, and this belief still exists. A suc- 

 cessful orchardist in Atlantic county, New Jersey, told me that, though it ap- 

 peared to him that the fruit was stung, the egg, if deposited, did not develop. 

 Some fruit dropped, from other causes apparently, but with this there was more 

 on the tree to ripen than good-sized fruit called for. 



These Japanese sorts hereabouts have been bearing for two or three years. 

 This year all growers report a very heavy crop. About four years ago, Edwin 

 Lonsdale, of Chestnut Hill, set out a small orchard of Abundance and Burbank. 

 It was my pleasure to see the trees full of ripe fruit toward the close of July, and 

 they were a cheering sight. The trees were overloaded with fruit. Mr. Lonsdale 

 had found, in previous seasons, a tendency to rot in the fruit when about to 

 ripen, and had looked to this as a probable thinning. This, however, occurred 

 to such a slight degree that it would have been better to thin them. Mr. Lons- 

 dale thinks the rotting may have been prevented by the two sprayings which 

 were given early in the season, which also kept off the curculio. While no doubt 

 something is due to the spraying, there are other fruit-growers who have not 

 sprayed who had fair crops of fruit. In conversation with a fruit-grower from 

 near Lancaster, he informed me that orchards of Japanese plums there produced 



