152 The Connecticut Pomological Society 



able to give you as much as you had a right to expect. 

 When a person comes from another state to talk about any- 

 thing we all think he is some big gun in the business, or has 

 some right to do it, because otherwise he would not come so 

 far from home. In this case you will be disappointed, but as 

 Mr. Miles simply asked me to give my practical experience 

 and knowledge of the plum business, that is what I propose 

 to do. When I get to talking I sometimes talk too much, 

 and as he tells me I have about three-quarters of an hour, if 

 I talk more than that I hope you will call me down. 



Now, friends, we have, as you all know, three strains of 

 plums that we can grow with more or less success. Those 

 are the natives, the European, and the Japanese. The former 

 two I have had little experience with, and with the other very 

 fair success. I can manage to grow the former two. I can't 

 manage the black rot. The rot is something that is ahead of 

 me, and destroys the profit on European and native plum cul- 

 ture for me. Now, I wish to say right here that I am going 

 to give my experience over in Jersey, one hundred and fifty 

 miles away, and what is true there under certain conditions 

 may not be true here, but there are certain points, like culti- 

 vation, etc., which, in a general way, are true in every locality, 

 in my opinion, except in Texas. There they have a way of 

 their own. But, as you all know, the culture of fruit, for 

 the most part, is a local matter, or, as Hancock said about 

 the tariff, "it's a local issue." We might as well tell the 

 truth about it. That is so about fruit more than most any 

 other one thing, but the way to be adopted to be successful 

 in plum culture, that is, in regard to certain points, is pretty 

 much the same all over. All you have to do is to be guided 

 by the local circumstances, and that is just the reason that 

 what may be all right here under certain circumstances will 

 not be all right there. Now, then, the plums I have fruited 

 of the European varieties include the French gage. Imperial, 

 Lombard, Germantown, and three or four other varieties. I 

 have grown them to some extent, but never enough to pay 

 me, on account of the rot. You may have that here. If 

 you do, I wish you would tell me what to do for it. We 

 have it terribly. I went to some of these fellows, the profes- 



