MAKING NEW KINDS OF PLANTS 



413 



very dull -colored, small, bitter fruit (see Fig. 233), 

 utterly worthless except for preserving. It has the 

 advantage of growing in all situations, thriving in dry 

 sand or in the soggy soil of swamps, indifferent to 

 cold and frost and wonderfully prolific. 



By crossing and selection, the good qualities of 

 both parents have been retained and the bad ones 



233. Improved Beach Plum in the tenter. The parents are: Beach Plum on the right, 

 an American Plum on the left. Natural size. 



eliminated. The Improved Beach Plum, as it is called, 

 bears so abundantly that the fruit almost conceals the 

 wood, as may be readily seen from the photograph 

 (Fig. 234) , which represents a branch three and a half 

 feet long. The fruit is shown full size in Fig. 233. 

 It is of a deep purple color, with white dots, with deep 

 yellow flesh and a stone not larger than a cherry -pit. 

 It is a delicious plum of unusually fine flavor, without 

 a trace of the bitter taste of the Beach Plum. It is 

 indifferent to frost, and grows and bears under the 

 most trying conditions of soil and climate, and will 



