140 THE PRUNE. 



that the Splendor prune, being a real freestone, and of very small 

 seed, is exceptionally fitted for this purpose. It may be that the Im- 

 perial or Clairac prunes, being so large that some trouble is had with 

 the curing, may profitably be seeded for the finer trade. We need 

 among our prune men a few of similar caliber to the Fresno raisin 

 growers, both in the curing and marketing processes." 



Commenting on the above, the editor says : 



We do not know of a growing demand for pitted prunes, but know no reason 

 why, under right conditions, such a demand cannot be created. The prune men 

 of California have not begun to exhaust the possibilities of this really delicious 

 fruit product. Witness what France has done and is doing with the prune. The 

 Klondike demand for pitted prunes came not from a desire for a fancy article, as 

 such, but because the conditions of freight transportation necessitated a reduc- 

 tion of bulk and weight to the minimum, and because of this a pitted prune was 

 wanted. We know no reason why a pitted prune should not be as desirable in 

 household economy as a seeded raisin. 



RUBY AND BLACK PRUNES. 



Mr. A. W. Lane, in a paper before the farmers' institute at Han- 

 ford, Cal., in speaking about the two methods of curing, says: "I 

 placed upon one tray fifty pounds of prunes in a condition to make 

 rubies, and on another the same amount of black. After curing, the 

 rubies weighed nineteen and one-half pounds, and the blacks twenty- 

 six and one-half pounds." The prunes to make rubies must be picked 

 or shaken from the trees before they are perfectly ripe and sulphured 

 to produce the ruby color. 



THE BURBANK PRUNE. 



There were recently brought to the Healdsburg (Cal.) Tribune 

 office, by John McClish, samples of the new Burbank Sugar j)rune, 

 dried and ready for market. The samples, which were fair specimens 

 of the prune, would run about eighteen to the pound. This prune, 

 says the paper just mentioned, has many advantages over the French 

 variety. The grafts will bear in about half the time the French re- 

 quires ; it ripens from a month to six weeks earlier, dries quicker, and 

 also contains more sugar than the French prune. Mr. McClish is 

 greatly pleased with the new prune and will secure some 1300 or 1400 

 buds for himself and other orchardists who are interested in it. In 

 one instance where this prune and the French variety were grafted on 

 the same stock, the latter bore a very few prunes, while the Burbank 

 graft was loaded with fruit. 



In the event of phylloxera destroying the vineyards, Mr. McClish 

 believes that this new i3rune can be most advantageously iised on land 

 now occupied by vines. Being very early in maturing, the fruit 

 would reach marketable condition before the moisture in the soil had 

 been drawn out by the hot days of late summer. Were the French 



