CULTURE OF THE PERSIMMON. 



By Arthur Bryant, President Illinois Horticultural Society. 



Within the past two or three years paragrajDhs have appeared in 

 different publications inviting the attention of horticulturists to the 

 persimmon. Believing that this fruit may be greatly improved by cul- 

 tivation, I will relate my own experience in regard to it. 



In the autumn of 1S33 I gathered some persimmons near Meredosia, 

 on the Illinois River, which is as far north as I have found the tree 

 growing wild in the west. The seeds were sown the next spring, and 

 I raised some fifty or sixty plants. The tops were mostly killed the 

 following winter, which was a severe one ; the only instance in which 

 they have ever been injured by extreme cold. After remaining four or 

 five years in the seed-bed, they were transplanted — a not- very success- 

 ful operation, most of them having only a tap-root, larger than the 

 stem, and penetrating the soil to an unknown depth. About twenty 

 survived ; one half of which bore fruit in ten or twelve years from the 

 seed, the rest being barren. No two trees produce fruit exactly alike ; 

 it varies in size, shape, flavor, and time of ripening. One tree pro- 

 duces the largest fruit I ever saw ; it has fewer seeds than usual, and 

 is one of the earliest to ripen. 



In this latitude (41° 30') the persimmon does not uniformly ripen its 

 fruit. It rarely blooms till June, and the fruit is best when frosts do 

 not occur till late in autumn. It ripens in succession, and all that has 

 not reached a certain stage of maturity is spoiled by freezing. In 

 1869 the trees did not flower till the end of June; the summer was 



VOL. IX. 3 33 



