72 LUTHER BURBANK 



necessary to mention only such aspects of the 

 work as refer specifically to this prune. 



The Conquest was produced by crossing a par- 

 tially stoneless plum in my orchard with the 

 French prune. 



The difficulty of getting a stoneless prune was 

 about equal to the difficulty of getting a satisfac- 

 tory stoneless plum. If I had crossed with a 

 plum it would have been a hundred times more 

 difficult to get the prune characters than it was 

 to get stonelessness. 



In the Conquest the size and quality of the 

 French prune is retained or even intensified, 

 together with the stonelessness of the other 

 parent. This cross brought out both prunes and 

 plums some of the largest plums ever seen. At 

 first they were all blue like the stoneless parent; 

 later they took; on all the colors of ordinary 

 plums. 



The advantages of the stoneless prune are too 

 obvious to require elucidation. 



To be sure, the new prune is not in every case 

 absolutely stoneless. A small speck often per- 

 sists in prunes of best quality. It has been no 

 great trouble to totally eliminate the stone in a 

 poor fruit; to combine stonelessness with good 

 quality of fruit has been extremely difficult. But 

 continued selection has finally produced a prune 



