172 HOME FRUIT GROWER 



pomologists are descended from two European and one Japanese 

 species. Within the past half century efforts have been made to 

 develop useful varieties from several American species, not that these 

 species, or the varieties as yet developed from them, are superior to 

 those of the European or Japanese species, but they are needed either 

 to fill gaps in our season, or to supply Plums where these Old World 

 varieties and their descendants fail because of unfavorable climate. 



The European varieties succeed best from Nova Scotia southward 

 to Pennsylvania and westward to Michigan, in the irrigated sections 

 of the Rockies and also on the Pacific Coast. In favored localities 

 of the Southeastern States are occasional orchards even to the Gulf 

 of Mexico, but in the Mississippi basin they are almost unknown. 

 The Japanese varieties as a class are less desirable than the European, 

 but they enhance the list of flavors, extend the Plum season and they 

 may be grown successfully in many sections where the Europeans fail 

 or are only indifferently successful, notably in the South and the 

 Southwest as well as in sections where the Europeans succeed. Except 

 a few varieties, characterized herein, choice should be first made among 

 the European varieties where these succeed. 



Both European and Japanese Plums have been cultivated and 

 improved for centuries. So it is not surprising that they have numerous 

 varieties. American species began to attract pomological attention 

 scarcely more than fifty years ago, yet varieties have been originated 

 which are not only good in themselves but give promise of much better 

 ones to follow. The leading American species (Prunus americand) 

 grows wild from Nova Scotia to Florida and westward to the Rockies 

 a pretty big territory! While perhaps none of its varieties, which are 

 practically all early ripening, equals in quality even the mediocre 

 European or Japanese kinds and may therefore be excluded from 

 the home orchard where these will thrive, yet they form a highly 

 welcome addition to the meagre fruit list where the more civilized, 

 more pampered foreigners lack stamina. A sub-variety (P. americana 

 mollis) is specially abundant in Iowa and Missouri. Its leading variety 

 is Wolf. 



Another (P. hortulana) native from western Tennessee and Ken- 

 tucky to Illinois, Missouri and Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, 

 is valuable because its varieties are specially suited to the lower Mis- 

 sissippi basin and the Southern States. They bear well at least as 

 far north as the Lake Erie shores. Varieties of a sub-species (P. 

 hortulana mineri), possibly a hybrid between hortulana and americana, 

 are specially valuable because they ripen late and thus extend the season 

 where only native Plums can be grown successfully. 



The Canada Plum (P. nigra), considered by some botanists and 



