ORIENTAL PLUMS 19 



heavy white bloom. The stone is small and the 

 flesh of fine texture, firm, sugary, and delicious. 

 It will keep two weeks or more after ripening; 

 or it can be picked when hard and white, and will 

 color and ripen almost as well as if left on 

 the tree. 



The general excellence of this fruit may per- 

 haps best be gauged by the statement that last 

 year more than one hundred carloads of this 

 variety alone were shipped from California to 

 the eastern markets. 



DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME 



But while these notable successes attended the 

 earliest hybridizing efforts, it must not be sup- 

 posed that the experiment was carried out with- 

 out difficulty. 



In fact it was not easy to effect the cross 

 between the Japanese plums and the European 

 varieties. Some varieties refused to combine; 

 and probably not more than one in a hundred 

 of these crosses proved in any way satisfactory. 



When a hybrid is produced, the traits of the 

 Japanese plum usually seem prepotent in most 

 of its characters, though in many cases the bal- 

 ance between the two is good. 



Whereas the hybrids of the first generation 

 sometimes produce fairly good fruits, as a rule 



