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in height, the next season, and in the autumn or the ensuing 

 spring, they may be taken from the seed beds, their tap roots 

 reduced, and all that are of suitable size, planted at once in the 

 nursery rows, the smaller ones being thickly bedded until after 

 another season's growth. 



The stocks planted out in the nursery will, ordinarily, be ready 

 for working about the ensuing midsummer, and, as the plum is 

 quite difficult to bud in this dry climate, if the exact season is 

 not chosen, the budder must watch the condition of the trees, 

 and insert his buds as early as they are sufficiently firm, say, 

 in this neighbourhood, about the 10th of July. Insert the buds, 

 if possible, on the north side of the stock, that being more pro- 

 tected from the sun, and tie the bandage rather more tightly 

 than for other trees. 



The English propagate very largely by layers three varieties 

 of the common plum the Muscle, the Brussels and the Pear 

 Plum, which are almost exclusively employed for stocks with 

 them. But we have not found these stocks superiour to the 

 seedlings raised from our common plums, (the Blue Gage, 

 Horse-plum, &c.,) so abundant in all our gardens. For dwarf- 

 ing, the seedlings of the Mirabelle are chiefly employed. 



Open standard culture, is the universal mode in America, as 

 the plum is one of the hardiest of fruit trees. It requires lit- 

 tle or no pruning, beyond that of thinning out a crowded head, 

 or taking away decayed or broken branches, and this should be 

 done before midsummer, to prevent the flow of gum. Old trees 

 that have become barren, may be renovated by heading them 

 in pretty severely, covering the wounds with our solution of 

 gum shellac, and giving them a good top dressing at the roots. 



SOIL. The plum will grow vigorously in almost every part 

 of this country, but it only bears its finest and most abundant 

 crops in heavy loams, or in soils in which there is a consider- 

 able mixture of clay. In sandy soils, the tree blossoms and 

 sets plentiful crops, but they are rarely perfected, falling a prey 

 to the curculio, an insect that harbors in the soil, and seems to 

 find it difficult to penetrate or live in one of a heavy texture, 

 while a warm, light, sandy soil, is exceedingly favorable to its 

 propagation. It is also, undoubtedly true, that a heavy soil is 

 naturally the most favourable one. The surprising facility with 

 which superior new varieties are raised merely by ordinary re- 

 production from seed, in certain parts of the valley of the Hud- 

 son, as at Hudson, or near Albany, where the soil is quite* 

 clayey, and also the delicious flavour and great productive- 

 ness and health of the plum tree there almost without any care, 

 while in adjacent districts of rich sandy land it is a very uncer- 

 tain bearer, are very convincing proofs of the great importance 

 of clayey soil for this fruit. 



Where the whole soil of a place is light and sandy, we would 



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