20 



Of the domestic plums very few do w^ll worked direct on to 

 peach root. Most of the well-known varieties make so imperfect 

 a junction that we have had to stop attempting any result. 

 Almost all of them do well on myrobolan as far as making 

 a junction is concerned, but except on soil which is adapted for 

 the myrobolan, that is to say, a stiff heavy soil the growth, of the 

 tree is not satisfactory ; in most instances therefore in dealing with 

 the domestic plums on myrobolan we have a perfect junction 

 (which we do not get in the case of the peach root), but a not 

 altogether satisfactory later result (except on the stiff soil, where 

 it is most excellent and satisfactory). "We have now made up our 

 minds to carry out a system of double working the domestic plums ; 

 wo have been experimenting on these lines for two years and 

 hope soon to be able to overcome the entire difficulty, and put a 

 domestic plum into the hands of planters which will really give 

 satisfaction ; we may say that other countries have had the same 

 difficulties and are overcoming them in this way. We, however, 

 cannot, we find, literally adopt the result of experiments in other 

 countries, as there is in many instances a very different behaviour 

 here. 



Prunes do well on either stock ; it depends entirely on your soil, 

 what root you should have them worked on. The peach is the best 

 all-round stock, but on some soils plum stock is much more 

 satisfactory and even necessary. It would not be out of place 

 here to mention one circumstance w T hich came under our own eye 

 in California, and show the characteristics of the respective stocks 

 better than pages of argument. We knew a nurseryman that 

 budded in 1891 120,000 French prunes, 105,000 were on 

 strong healthy peach stocks, 15,000 were on myrobolan. The 

 soil was alluvial, fairly heavy, the winter when these stocks were 

 carrying dormant buds was a severe one, resulting in floods for 

 several days : for two or three of which the nurseries were 

 underwater from the overflow of the river the effect was that in the 

 middle of the growing season (that is 15th June) in California, the 

 date we visited the nurseries out of 105,000 prunes on peach 1,500 

 scattered trees only were alive and growing freely, and out of 

 15,000 on myrobolan all stood 4 ft. high and not a bud lost. As 

 Japanese plums do equally well on either root on any peach soil 

 take them if possible on peach root and vice versa. 



The Almond root, which we have also tested, we do not care 

 about for any sort of plum or prune ; it does not as a stock in this 

 country fulfil our expectation, based on the place it' held in the 

 estimation of growers in certain soils in California. 



