THE 



Canadian Horticulturist 



JANUARY, 1903 



Volume XXVI 



Number i 



THE JAPANESE PLUMS 



ALTHOUGH only introduced into Amer- 

 ica some thirty years, these plums 

 have become very widely disseminated, receiv- 

 ing probably a larger place in our orchards 

 than their real merits deserve. 



Many varieties of them have been intro- 

 duced and pushed upon the attention of the 

 unsuspecting fruit grower, who has too often 

 found in them a sad disappointment. The 

 Wickson for example has been much boom- 

 ed, and truly it is a large fine variety ; but 

 alas ! so far in our orchard, and we have 

 planted about 100 trees, it has proved itself 

 most unproductive. 



Some of us were discussing thejapan plums 

 at the Industrial, where Mr, John Mitchell, of 

 Clarksburg, Ont., showed a fine collection; 

 and the general agreement was that the 

 following four varieties were the choice of 

 all the Japans to cover the season, viz., 

 Red June, Abundance, Burbank and Chabot. 



Mr. S. D. Willard, of Geneva, New York, 

 speaking before Western New York Fruit 

 Growers, said of these Japans, that owing to 

 their early blossojning his crop of Abundance 

 was nearly ruined by spring frosts, when, 

 hearing of the Burbank, he had them all top- 

 worked to the latter variety. "I like," he 

 said," the Abundance to eat out of hand, but 

 I do not think it is as good a handler and 

 shipper as the Burbank and some of the 



others. We have had a good many Bur- 

 banks. Some seasons, we have had four or 

 five thousand baskets. A few years ago 

 when looking up something better, if we 

 could, we ran on to the Red June and in con- 

 ference with a man from Lake Michigan, I 

 learned that side by side with the Burbank, 

 when the spring frost had done injury to 

 to buds of the Burbank, the Red June would 

 come out in good shape. Following up 

 that idea in connection with the fact that it 

 is the earliest of all plums to ripen that I 

 know of, we have planted and fruited them 

 quite largely. We have had them ripe and in 

 good shipping condition on the 21st of July. 

 I made up my mind it was a good plum for 

 the orchard man, and we have found it so. 

 We had something over a thousand baskets 

 of them last year, (1901), and they brought 

 a higher price per basket than any other 

 plums we shipped, except some of the old 

 varieties that came on the market after 

 the other varieties were out of the way." 



We have received the following replies to 

 inquiries regarding the behavior of the Red 

 June in various sections of Ontario : — 



T. H. Race, Mitchell: — The only varieties 

 among the Japan plums that I have tried on 

 my grounds here are the Prunus Simoni, 

 Wickson, Abundance, and Burbank. The 

 first two I have discarded; the third I have 



