WHY THE FRENCH PRUNE IS BEST 279 



mispronunciation at the same time, for a prune which seemed to 

 be too small and inferior. The people must have something large, 

 and propagators offered trees of the "gros prune d'Agen," or the 

 "Hungarian prune/' It was a double misnomer, because Europe 

 does not have any "gros prune d'Agen" and the variety did not 

 come from either France or Hungary, but was the old large light 

 red, English plum, properly called Pond's Seedling, re-christened in 

 California to meet a long-felt want. But it did not meet such a 

 want ; it would not dry sweet nor fleshy, but became merely a skin 

 and pit, with a sour streak between. Still the question persisted: 

 Have we the true French prune? It was definetely settled by the 

 late W. B. West of Stockton, who visited France in 1878, and after 

 close examination of the trees, announced that the variety grown 

 in California was really the prune d'Agen, and that we had made 

 no mistake so far as getting the main standard variety of French 

 prune was concerned. 



But still we needed a variety which would run more to large 

 sizes, and how to get it, with sweetness and flesh, characters which 

 would resemble the best French product, was, and even now is, still 

 a question. One of the early introductions to meet this end is now 

 generally known as Robe de Sergeant. Here again confusion at- 

 tends the name. Robe de Sergeant i^one of the synonyms of prune 

 d'Agen, and yet the fruit we secured was different. Much dis- 

 cussion was given to the elucidation of this problem, and the con- 

 clusion seemed to be that the variety is grown in France, but in 

 another district, and is generally considered inferior to the prune 

 d'Agen. Still it runs larger, and has sold well, even though of dis- 

 tinctly different quality, and would probably have cut a much larger 

 figure in California prune production if it had shown itself to be 

 more free and regular in bearing. Next came the "prune d'ente, or 

 Imperial epineuse," introduced at about the same time by John 

 Rock and Felix Gillet, which has been quite widely planted, but 

 because of shy bearing, especially when attacked by thrips, and 

 because of the difficulty in drying such a large prune, this variety, 

 of which so much was expected, has fallen into disfavor for the low 

 lands of the Santa Clara Valley, though on the mountains west of 

 this valley and in the prune valleys north of the Bay of San Fran- 

 cisco it has proved very popular and profitable when planted on 

 uplands. 



Other introductions made much earlier, like the German and 

 Italian, also fell out of the race very early, for shy bearing and for 

 different flesh characters. Although the latter leads in Oregon and 

 other States north of us, it is out of California calculations. The 

 conclusion of the whole matter now is that we have never secured 

 from abroad a better than the one which came more than sixty years 

 ago the true prune d'Agen. We have learned to grow it better, to 

 seek places where it grows larger and in full quantity ; to use irriga- 

 tion when it is needed by the tree to do its best ; to guard against 

 overbearing by reducing the amount of bearing wood and excessive 

 branching; to strengthen the soil by fertilization, and to grade the 

 fruit into sizes which commend themselves to different demands. 



