42 GARDENING 



PLUMS 



Plums are very easily grown if the district is 

 favourable to the growth of this fruit. The trees 

 flourish best on a very stiff soil, where it can thrust 

 its roots into harder and more compact masses of 

 soil than either the apple or the pear. 



Plums are very hardy fruits, and bear especially 

 well on walls. It is best to buy the young trees, 

 whether standards, bushes, pyramids, or fan trained. 

 Great care should be taken in the planting, as they 

 should not be planted too near the surface, so that 

 they get the full benefit of the surface soil and the 

 manure dressings. 



The trees are best planted in the autumn, and 

 by the following April they will make fresh roots, 

 and the buds will show ; then the shoots should be 

 cut back about three inches, and each shoot will 

 throw out three or four shoots, which will form 

 head enough. When the winter-time pruning comes, 

 if there are not enough shoots to make a good 

 head, the best must be cut back again to obtain 

 more shoots. After that they only require to be 

 looked over from time to time, and in the summer 

 to disbud as they require. 



Plums on walls require great care in pruning 

 and root pruning, as when they grow on walls they 

 are at times spurred in too much, and too much 

 young growth taken away. In pruning plums it 

 is the better plan to lay in as much young well- 

 matured wood, covered with fruit buds, as possible, 

 as the young fruit produces the finest fruits ; so that 

 every season as much young wood should be 



