SEVEN] OUT IN THE ORCHARD 



Sultan, Apple, Matthews, Climax, America, Hale, 

 and Bartlett. I am not sure that every one of these 

 is due to Mr. Burbank ; but it will not give him un- 

 due honor if we attribute to his skill a few origin- 

 ated elsewhere. His farm of thousands of acres, at 

 Santa Rosa, California, is the greatest experiment 

 station in the world. There, as in the Garden of 

 Eden, he creates new fruits, and new flowers, and 

 new vegetables, about as fast as the rest of us can 

 name them. 



Of our native sorts of plums a few enthusiasts 

 already have collections of at least two hundred 

 and fifty or more varieties. The collections are so 

 very large that it is difl5cult for any one at present 

 to speak with authority as to what half-dozen are 

 best for planting. I think that among the best for 

 a quiet garden are Hawkeye, Weaver, and Wyant. 

 Yet when you are altogether through with your 

 study of plums, there is one sort still to be named 

 that in almost all sections of the United States de- 

 serves to head the plum list for common people; 

 I mean the Bleecker, or Lombard. It is a tree that 

 grows so easily, and bears so profusely, while the 

 fruit is of such splendid canning quality, that it is 

 the plum for the four corners of the United States. 



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