ON THE PRUNE 



new fruit as so many have been put on the market 

 without real merits. Fruit growers, however, 

 appreciate to a considerable extent, the value of 

 selecting good varieties of fruit to propagate from. 

 It seems that the chief introduction of pedigreed 

 stock has taken place since our present nurseries 

 were located and advertised on letter heads, etc., 

 as specializers in pedigreed stock. 



"The Miller prune which we now call Morgan- 

 hill has been coming under the head of pedigreed 

 prunes. We called it in the first description 'Im- 

 proved French.' Very few people had enterprise 

 to buy these trees at any increased figure and now 

 we are propagating them at the same price as any 

 kind of prune tree. About half the people seem 

 to ask for pedigreed prunes and the others simply 

 say 'French prunes.' ' 



This, then, suggests a measure of success. It 

 constituted at least a good beginning. 



Successes more unqualified were to follow; but 

 the work just described was instrumental in lay- 

 ing the foundation for the later improvements 

 improvements that culminated in four prunes, one 

 of which is already revolutionizing an entire in- 

 dustry, while the others have intrinsic values at 

 least as great. 



An account of these perfected prunes will be 

 given in the succeeding chapter. 



[109] 



