242 Plums and Plum Culture 



THE VARIOUS STOCKS 



Horse plum. — This is a small-fruited variety of 

 the common Domestica plum, which is sometimes used 

 as a stock, especially in western New York, and espe- 

 cially for varieties of the Domestica and Damson 

 groups. Formerly it was much in vogue, but latterly 

 it has been superseded by Myrobalan and Marianna. 

 It gives a good, strong, healthy, hardy, long-lived 

 tree; but it is more difficult to work and does not give 

 so good results in the nursery as do Marianna 

 and Myrobalan. 



St. Julien. — The testimony of western New York 

 nurserymen and plum growers is quite uniformly to 

 the effect that the St. Julien stock is best for the Do- 

 mesticas, considered from the standpoint of the or- 

 chardist. It makes a better, stronger, longer-lived 

 tree than Myrobalan. It grows too slowly, however, 

 in the nursery, and the trees are not so salable at two 

 years old as when propagated on the other stocks. 

 Mr. S. D. Willard writes me as follows: "The trouble 

 is, we can never secure first-class stock of this variety 

 in France; and, too, at the same age, the trees grown 

 on this stock would be about half as large as those on 

 Myrobalan. We could not sell them. You have, 

 therefore, the best reason in the world why the nurs- 

 eryman would not use this stock." 



On triis same subject I have the following inter- 

 esting letter from Messrs. W. & T. Smith of Geneva, 

 New York: "St. Julien stocks are much preferred by 

 the orchardists in this locality, because trees certainly 

 do better in every way on that stock. They sprout less 

 from the root, are longer-lived, and generally more 

 vigorous than when on Myrobalan stocks. We occa- 

 sionally plant some St. Julien seedlings, but do not 

 make a practice of it, because in the first place St. 



