Hints on Vegetable and Fruit Farming. 31. 



paper ; and for this kind of fruit, as well as for all superior fruit 

 of every kind, contracts should be made, if possible, to supply 

 it directly to the retailer. 



Plum-trees and Damson-trees are grown on grass or in 

 plantations. Standards are set 15 feet apart each way, which would 

 take 193 trees per acre. In very strong land they are set 18 feet 

 apart. In Kent they are frequently put between apple- and 

 pear-trees, and are removed when these trees get large. Plum- 

 trees and damson- trees are often set with fruit-bushes. This 

 is a kind of plantation which tenants with long leases might 

 undertake without much risk, as the plum-trees will come into 

 profitable bearing after five or six years, and the damson-trees 

 after four or five years. Plum-trees are raised from common 

 plum stocks, grafted or budded with scions of the kind re- 

 quired. What is known as the Brussels stock is used for 

 producing large quick-growing trees ; the Pershore plum-tree, 

 grown so largely in Worcestershire, which can be raised from 

 cuttings, is also a good stock. For bush and small pyramids, 

 the grafts or buds are worked upon the Mirahelle petite^ a stock 

 having a bushy and prolific habit. The famous Farleigh or 

 Crittenden damson, which is so wonderfully productive and 

 profitable, can be easily raised from its own suckers or spawns 

 without grafting or budding. Nurserymen, however, hold that 

 better trees are obtained quite as quickly by grafting upon 

 ordinary stocks ; the stems of these are clean, and free from the 

 disfigurement caused by cutting away shoots from the natural 

 stocks. 



Plum-bushes may be planted in plantations with gooseberry- 

 or currant-bushes with immense advantage. Wind does not 

 injure them. They bear fruit abundantly. They may be 

 planted thickly ; the fruit is of fine quality, and can be picked 

 without ladders, or breaking the trees. When the superior 

 advantages of fruit-bushes of all kinds are fully realised, we 

 shall see a great revolution in English fruit-culture. The 

 American fruit-growers are largely adopting this system, and 

 gardeners who grow fruit for market have found out its supe- 

 riority over the old method. Good sorts of plums for planta- 

 tions are the Early Rivers, Early Diamond, Blue Prolific, 

 Perdrigon,* Early Orleans, Corse's Nota Bene, Dauphine, 

 Belgian Purple, Washington, Prince of Wales, Prince Engel- 

 bert, Pond's Seedling, a magnificent plum, Coe's Golden Drop, 

 Belle de Septembre. The best damsons are the Farleigh or 

 Crittenden's, the Shropshire and the Prune. They do not last 



* " It is said that the Perdrigon plum, with two kinds more, were first made 

 natives of this soil by Thomas Lord Cromwell when he returned from his 

 travels," — Hasted, ' History of Kent.' 



