1891.] ESSAYS. 115 



care in the selection of pits and a main reliance upon seedling 

 trees until healthy stocks may be secured from which buds may 

 be taken to continue desirable varieties. Some varieties of the 

 peach will reproduce themselves from seed if planted a sufficient 

 distance from other varieties so that the pollen will not be 

 transferred by the wind or insects to their blossoms. 



There are three species of wild plum indigenous to this 

 country but the stocks from which have come our improved 

 varieties had their origin in Asia and the southern part of 

 Europe. The trees are perfectly hardy and make a strong, 

 upright growth and come early into fruit. Could we overcome 

 two difficulties in the cultivation of this fruit the trees would be 

 •found in every garden and the fruit would become a profitable 

 orchard product. The curculio makes his appearance soon 

 after the fruit is formed and deposits its eggs in a crescent-shaped 

 cut in the flesh of the fruit which soon hatch and the young 

 grub eats his way to the stone, when the fruit falls and the young- 

 larva enters the ground to reappear the following year. One 

 method of dealing with this pest has been to spread a sheet cut 

 to the shape of the tree and large enough to extend outside its 

 branches and spread upon the ground and with a mallet padded 

 with thick cloth give the tree a sharp blow which dislodges the 

 insects and they fall upon the sheet curled up as if dead and 

 may be gathered and destroyed. An easier way of overcoming 

 this difficulty or reducing it to a minimum has been found in 

 keeping fowls in the orchard and occasionally jarring the trees. 

 A more serious trouble is with the black knot ; so generally 

 prevalent has this become that few trees more than five or six 

 years in the orchard are not more or less aftected. Formerly 

 the cause of the black knot was supposed to be an insect but 

 recent investigation seems to prove that it is a fungoid growth, 

 and as it increases the spores become detached and are blown 

 by the wind from tree to tree, so that if unchecked all the trees 

 in the vicinity where it first makes its appearance become 

 diseased. The usual practice has been among growers of this 

 fruit to examine carefully the trees in the spring and cut away 

 every appearance of a knot, but this often results in the de- 

 struction of the tree in the course of two or three years. The 



