FOR PROFIT. 77 



Frogmore Damson Free grower, resembling a Plum, 

 good cropper, large, and very luscious in flavour, 

 ripening earlier than others. 



The Cheshire or Shropshire 

 Damson (see illustration). Much 

 confusion exists as to this. The 

 one grown at Maidstone is that 

 called the Pruant Plum in Covent 

 Garden, and makes a large flat 

 weeping tree. The fruit is very 

 large for a Damson, oval and of rich flavour, and, 

 provided the branches of the trees are kept well 

 thinned, crops regularly; often hangs till end of 

 October. Trees of this kind, if left to themselves, 

 become unfruitful from the mere overcrowding of the 

 branches. Unless fully ripe it does not cook well. 



The Kentish Cluster (Farleigh, or Crittenden). The 

 profusion of fruit this produces can scarcely be credited, 

 and so large is the growth that it is customary in 

 estimating a crop to treat them by the ton. One 

 local grower took 3,000 bushels in one (scarce) year, 

 and made 145. per bushel of them. The trees require 

 to be hard pruned in for a few years until a head is 

 formed, otherwise, before there is sufficient branch 

 strength the first heavy crop breaks the boughs, and the 

 tree is disfigured for life. They soon form symmetrical 

 heads and are most beautiful in flower, and still more 

 so when laden with their rich violet fruit. Bushes or 

 Half-standards are recommended for exposed places ; 

 Standards for orchards. Budded trees are less liable 

 to blight than those from suckers. 



The Mereweather Introduced 1909; fruit as large 

 as Rivers' Prolific Plum, produced in dense clusters ; 



