XXVI.] NATIVES VS. THE JAPANESE TYPE. 429 



asaw types. It is singular, too, that the wild Pacific 

 plum is strikingly like the common European plum 

 in some of its features, whilst the southern Prunus 

 umbellata equally resembles in foliage the myrobalan. 

 Another curious circumstance about this Japanese 

 plum is its comparative immunity from leaf -blight 

 and the black -knot, and I have often wondered if we 

 should not yet discover that these diseases are 

 indigenous where it originated, and that it has passed 

 through the conflict with them. But perhaps this 

 immunity is only temporary, because of the compara- 

 tive rarity of the trees in this country. 



If, then, the Japanese plum is so much like our 

 own because it has been evolved in similar condi- 

 tions, it is not strange that we should find it to be 

 adapted to a wide range of this country. But grant- 

 ing this, why should it be even so well adapted to 

 our circumstances as our native plums are ? It has 

 one great advantage over our natives in the fact that 

 it has been cultivated from early times, and is already 

 much improved over its wild condition ; but beyond 

 this, I do not see that it can have merits beyond our 

 native. Time will do for our native plums what it 

 has done for the Japanese and European types and 

 for all other plants under the hand of man, and na- 

 ture has already done the rest, I am looking to the 

 Japanese plums to popularize the natives, because they 

 interpose a type between the widely unlike European 

 and American groups, and divert the attention of 

 conservative pomologists from the familiar old varie- 

 ties. And, furthermore, I am looking for good results 

 from hybridizing the American and Japanese species, 

 and there is already indication of this amalgamation ; 



