37o Notes and Gleanings. 



Plums. — The Chickasaw. — In the April number. I see an inquiry whether 

 the Chickasaw Plum is hardy enough to stand our winters at the Nortli. In 

 February, 1868, while at the meeting of the Northern Illinois Horticultural So- 

 ciety at Freeport, I saw the Chickasaw trees in the gentleman's garden where I 

 was stopping ; and he said they were quite hardy in that latitude, 42° 20' ; that 

 they were abundant bearers, fruit large, not very good quality, but answered a very 

 good purpose for cooking, preserving, &c. ; not infested with the curculio. This 

 last quality may be from its toughness, or peculiar flavor of the skin. The fol- 

 lowing spring, I sent to Mr. D. VVilmot Scott of Galena, 111., and got some Chick- 

 asaws, also some of the Miner plum-trees, which originated near Galena. 



Two years ago this spring, my friend Charles Hovey of Minneapolis sent me 

 a native plum of Minnesota, which he said they were cultivating in that Northern 

 country. Some of these latter are now (May 5) blooming very full. 



In these three varieties, I do not expect any thing but a second-rate culinary 

 fruit. Twenty-five years ago, we could go out in our native wild-plum thickets 

 about here, and find some varieties quite palatable. 



The great object with our plums is, to protect them from the curculio. Capt. 

 James Matthews of Knoxville, lo., the worthy president of our State Horticul- 

 tural Society, has succeeded in protecting his plums from the curculio, by jarring 

 the trees a few days after the insects begin their attack, and getting them all down 

 upon the ground ; then carefully spreading all the surface of the ground over, turn- 

 ing the surface all to the bottom of the spading, and patting it down smoothly with 

 the back of the spade, leaving no holes for the insects to crawl out, and they are 

 prisoners for life. This he has successfully done for several years, and done it 

 upon alternate trees in the row, saving a full crop on the trees thus treated, 

 and losing all the crop on the trees not so treated. 



Others, I believe, have been successful by spreading a coat of fresh horse- 

 manure >under the plum trees about the time of blooming, and letting it remain 

 until after fruiting. 



\ have ten plum-trees of choice varieties, young and thrifty, full of bloom 

 now, which I intend to enclose with a pig-pen fence, and put in a flock of pigs to 

 wean, trusting them to keep their yard clear of curculios. 



The hog is a very good gleaner of insects. I have large apple-orchards, 

 in which I sow clover after the trees come into bearing, then turn in hogs to 

 pasture on the clover, and eat the early fallen apples, nearly all of which contain 

 worms. Before I turned the hogs into my orchards, the canker-worm appeared; 

 but I have not seen any since. I do not know that the hogs will protect an 

 orchard from the canker-worm ; but I believe if there are hogs enough, and they 

 are fed with corn or other grain under the trees, they would protect them from 

 the canker-worm. Some one said in "The New- York Farmers' Club" when 

 we sent them a box of very beautiful Iowa apples, last winter, that they used tc 

 raise fine and fair fruit down East, when the country was new, and free from irt- 

 sects. My friends, we are by no means free from insects here at the West. The 

 truth is, we can beat the East on beautiful fruit, and have always done it, at fruit 

 exhibitions. Suel Foster. 



Muscatine, Io. 



