210 GARDENING WITH BRAINS *«? 



every color of the plum, varying in size and 

 quality, and ripening from June to November. 



Not only is a plum without stone pleasanter 

 to eat, but — ^what is of tremendous commercial 

 importance — a tree bearing stoneless plums will 

 yield almost twice as much fruit because of the 

 saving of the energy previously wasted on 

 growing pits. Along this line Burbank's example 

 is bound to revolutionize stone-fruit growing. 

 It will take many years to do this; in the mean- 

 time let us exert pressure on the orchardists and 

 marketmen to let us enjoy the best of the 

 Burbank plums (twenty-seven varieties of them 

 were shipped East last year — over a million 

 crates, or fifty million pounds) instead of. toler- 

 ating flavorless trash such as we usually have to 

 put up with. One of the surprising Burbank 

 plums is called the Bartlett. This, he says, **is 

 so much superior to the Bartlett pear in its own 

 peculiar flavor and fragrance that no one would 

 choose the pear if the plum were at hand." 



Last autumn I received from Mr. Burbank a 

 box of delicious prunes, larger and sweeter than 

 any French prunes I have ever tasted, with a 

 letter dated September 13th, which I will cite 

 because it illustrates the epicurean side of his 

 genius, without which he could not have made 

 his new fruits so superior to others in flavor: 



As you are the acknowledged champion and leading 

 exponent of the science of fragrance and flavor in foods, 



