THE BEACH PLUM 7 



common fruit plants, will not be like the parent plant from which the seeds came, 

 vegetative methods of propagation must be used if one wishes to obtain a number 

 of plants from a desirable bush. 



Many of our common fruits are propagated by grafting or budding the desired 

 variety on a seedling root or stock. This can be done with beach plums. How- 

 ever, budding and grafting are slow, laborious methods which require considerable 

 skill on the part of the operator. Both Prunus americana and Primus angiistifolia 

 have been used as stocks. Since the latter species does not succeed north of its 

 natural limit, which is in Delaware and Kentucky, its use as a stock in Massachu- 

 setts is questionable. 



The use of cuttings offers a much more promising method of propagating beach 

 plums. Graves (4) used root cuttings successfully. Pieces of root as big around 

 as a lead pencil or larger were cut into 3 or 4 inch lengths and buried horizontally 

 2 or 3 inches deep in the soil out of doors in the fall. A heavy mulch was applied 

 to keep the soil from heaving. This method should give a 50 percent stand of 

 plants according to Graves. 



Doran and Bailey (2, 3) had good success with softwood cuttings made in 

 June and treated with a root-inducing substance. Best results were obtained 

 with cuttings taken when the fruit was about 1/8 inch in diameter, treated with a 

 powder dip of indolebutyric acid in talc, and placed in sand in a greenhouse bench 

 where temperature and humidity could be controlled. Small side branches of 

 the current season's growth 4 to 6 inches long rooted best. Untreated cuttings 

 rooted very slowlv or not at all. 



Figure 7. The Area Shown in Figure 6. a Few Years After It Was Mowed. 

 Notice the vigorous growth of new wood from the old stumps. 



Photo by Bertram Tomlinson, 



Pruning 



Pruning, like any other orchard practice, has as its ultimate objective the 

 production of more and better fruit. This is accomplished by removing weak 

 and dead wood, thus invigorating the remaining parts of the plant, and by re- 

 moving diseased portions, thus assisting in disease control. It should be re- 



