PLUMS A.\J) DAMSONS SITUATION AND SOIL. 179 



ensuing by the former method (see Yol. I., pages 120 128). Except for special purposes, 

 grafting piuins is not generally advisable. 



SITUATION AND SOIL. 



Situation. Wherever cereal crops are capable of successful cultivation, it is practic- 

 able to utilise sites not fitted for tillage with the hardier varieties of plums. The site 

 must be open to every ray of light. Shelter, such as that of hills or woods at a distance, 

 aid .s the cultivator immensely in the production of the choicest plums, slopes being better 

 than flat ground, and ridges superior to hollows, but the chief consideration is the free 

 access of light and air. Provided the atmosphere is dry, plum blossom and the tender 

 fruit suffers little from spring frosts, but in low damp sites the crops are ruined by 

 night dews congealing in spring on the blossom and foliage, causing the former to fall and 

 the latter to " silverleaf." Plenty of light, abundant air, with shelter from bleak points, 

 are the essentials of a site for plums. 



Soil. The success of one kind of plum in one district and its comparative failure 

 in another points to the cultivator having strict regard to the soil as well as to the 

 climate. Damsons seem to be at home everywhere. Gisborne's plum succeeds in a 

 strong chalky clay, and it is equally at home in light soil. Pershore seems to like a 

 " holding " staple as it hardly fruits in sandy soil. Winesour is of little use without 

 limestone. Wyedale delights in the semi-vegetable loams and irony soils of Cleveland ; 

 this plum is a step from the damsons to the plums. Orleans and its descendants- 

 Cox's Emperor, Prince of "Wales, and Goliath like warm soils. The Czar and Sultan 

 are equally at home in any ordinarily good medium, and the Victoria appears thoroughly 

 cosmopolitan, thriving almost everywhere, yet best on a chalky strong loam or clay. 

 Early Prolific loves calcareous clay interspersed with gravel. Belgian Purple and 

 Prince Engelbert, with Coe's Golden Drop, are less fastidious as to soil ; also Pond's 

 Seedling, Diamond, and Monarch these, with Jefferson, Kirke's, and White Magnum 

 Bonum, thriving in light loams as well as those verging on clay. Gages prefer 

 a calcareous loam the blending of brick-earth and limestone (Kentish Hag). 



Twelve to 15 inches' depth of good soil, incumbent on a calcareous clay, and well 

 drained, is the soil par excellence for plums, for it is of a sustaining nature, and holds 

 the manures applied for the benefit of the trees. This is important, for they carry at 

 times such enormous crops as to require more support than other fruit trees to prevent 

 exhaustion. A deep and rich soil is prolific of wood rather than fruit, and favours 



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