THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 189 



pubescent, tinged red, eglandular or with one or two very small, globose, greenish glands 

 usually at the base of the leaf. 



Blooming season rather early, short; flowers appearing after the leaves, seven- 

 eighths inch across, white; borne on lateral buds and spurs; pedicels eleven-sixteenths 

 inch long, below medium in thickness, glabrous, green; calyx-tube reddish, campanulate, 

 glabrous; calyx-lobes broad, obtuse, slightly glandular-serrate, pubescent, strongly 

 reflexed; petals roundish or ovate, crenate, not clawed; anthers yellow; filaments 

 one-quarter inch in length; pistil glabrous, longer than the stamens, somewhat defective. 



Fruit very early, season short; one and one-quarter inches in diameter, roundish, 

 halves usually equal; cavity shallow and narrow, abrupt, regular; suture a dark red 

 line; apex roundish; color light or dark crimson-red over a yellow ground, overspread 

 with thin bloom; dots few, light russet, clustered about the apex; stem slender, 

 eleven-sixteenths inch in length, glabrous, adhering well to the fruit; skin thin, tough, 

 parting readily; flesh medium yellow, very juicy, fibrous, tender and melting, slightly 

 sweet, lacking in flavor; inferior in quality; stone clinging, five-eighths inch by one- 

 half inch in size, roundish-oval, turgid, blunt, with somewhat pitted surfaces; ventral 

 suture acute, furrowed; dorsal suture distinctly and broadly grooved. 



DE SOTO 



Prunus americana 



i. III. Hort. Soc. Rft. 225. 1877. 2. la. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 356. 1879. 3. Ibid. 159. 1880. 4. 

 Ibid. 237. 1882. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 42. 1883. 6. la. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 366. 1883. ^. III. 

 Hort. Soc. Rpt. 63. 1890. 8. Cornell Sta. Bui. 38:37, 86. 1892. 9. Wis. Sta. Bui. 63:24, 35, 36 

 fig. 16. 1897. 10. Waugh Plum Cult. 147. 1901. n. Budd-Hansen Am. Hon. Man. 295. 1903. 

 12. Can. Exp. Farm Bui. 43:30. 1903. 13. 5. Dak. Sta. Bui. 93:13. 1903. 



Traer 3. Trayer 4. 



De Soto probably holds first place among the Americana plums in 

 the favor of fruit-growers. The qualities which commend it are: A tree 

 rather better suited to the orchard than other varieties of Prunus americana 

 having little of the waywardness of most sorts of its species and somewhat 

 the manner of growth of the European plums. The trees, too, are enor- 

 mously productive, so much so that in many cases their vitality is weakened 

 by over-bearing unless thinned. The fruits of De Soto, while not as large 

 nor as brilliantly colored as some of the Americanas, are not surpassed 

 by any of the native plums in quality and keep and ship as well as any. 

 The variety becomes, therefore, a market sort of value in some regions. 

 The fruits are a little more subject to curculio than those of most of the 

 native plums and the trees blight in the South somewhat and do not 

 stand the drouths of the Mississippi Valley as well as some other varieties. 

 Notwithstanding these defects, speaking generally, the De Soto may be 

 recommended as one of the best of its species. 



