LUTHER BURBANK 



this ideal is met, or nearly met, in the fourth 

 member of my quartet of best prunes the 

 Conquest. 



This, the newest of my prunes, was first offered 

 in the catalog of 1911-12. 



The work of producing the stoneless prune 

 parallels that of the production of the stoneless 

 plum, a preliminary account of which has already 

 been given, and fuller details as to which will ap- 

 pear in the succeeding chapter. Here it is neces- 

 sary to mention only such aspects of the work as 

 refer specifically to this prune. 



The Conquest was produced by crossing a par- 

 tially stoneless plum in my orchard with the 

 French prune. 



The difficulty of getting a stoneless prune was 

 about equal to the difficulty of getting a satisfac- 

 tory stoneless plum. If I had crossed with a plum 

 it would have been a hundred times more difficult 

 to get the prune characters than it was to get 

 stonelessness. 



In the Conquest the size and quality of the 

 French prune is retained, together with the stone- 

 lessness of the other parent. This cross brought 

 out both prunes and plums some of the largest 

 plums ever seen. At first they were all blue like 

 the stoneless parent; later they took on all colors 

 of ordinary plums. 



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