Tenth Annual Meeting 117 



grapes for wine-making by the foreigners who have come to 

 reside among us, notably the French and Italians, and they are 

 furnishing themselves and others with a substantial food product 

 out of our grapes. Those people use a great deal of wine with 

 their meals, and that has led to a demand from that quarter 

 for certain varieties to plant for wine-making. I want to say 

 to Brother Hoyt that those who have tried it tell me that 

 the Green Mountain grape is one of the best grapes for wine- 

 making that has ever been grown in the state of Connecti- 

 cut. It is on account of its early-ripening qualities and the 

 amount of sugar there is in it. Grape planting and culture 

 is an industry which is certainly on the increase among our 

 growers. 



"Japanese plums were almost unknown to us ten years ago. 

 The Abundance, and the Burbank, and those older varieties 

 were known to us then, but practically our entire list was un- 

 known in this state ten years ago. There wasn't a commercial 

 orchard of Japanese plums in our state ten years ago, and there 

 was not, in all probability, five thousand trees on private grounds 

 in this state ten years ago. At the present time I presume 

 there are upwards of a hundred thousand, and there are probably 

 very few private grounds that have fruit trees on them at all but 

 have one or more of the Japanese plums. Their development 

 has furnished a new food supply to our masses throughout the 

 summer season of two or three months. We questioned four 

 or five years ago whether there would be any sale for them. 

 That has been settled. The people have only had to see 

 them and learn about them to buy them. Where plums of 

 good size, beauty and high quality have been put upon the 

 market there has been a steady increase of demand at prices 

 remunerative to the grower, and they are with us to stay as one 

 of our valuable commercial crops. The Abundance is one of the 

 best. The Burbank still holds its reputation as a plum of large 

 size and great beauty of shape. For canning, the Satsuma and 

 the October Purple are superb fruits. Those are some of the 

 most excellent plums covering the season from July to October. 

 The Red June is another variety which is one of the most reli- 

 able and is a valuable plum because it comes in so early, but like 

 most of the early varieties is subject to rot. They need the 



