26 



a junction that we have had to stop attempting any result. Al- 

 most all of them do well on myrobolan as far as making a junc- 

 tion is concerned, but except on soil which is adapted for the 

 myrobolan, that is to say, a stiff heavy soil, the growth of the 

 tree is not satisfactory; in most instances, therefore, in dealing 

 with the domestic plums on myrobolan we have a perfect junc- 

 tion (which we do not get in the case of the peach root), but a 

 not altogether satisfactory later result (except on the stiff soil), 

 where it is most excellent and satisfactory. 



Prunes do well on either stock ; it depends entirely on your 

 soil what root you should have them worked on. The peach is 

 the best all-round stock, but on some soils plum stock is much 

 more satisfactory and even necessary. It would not be out of 

 place here to mention one circumstance which came under our 

 own eye in California to show the characteristics of the respec- 

 tive stocks better than pages of argument. We knew a nursery- 

 man that budded in 1891 120,000 French prunes ; 105,000 were 

 on strong healthy peach stocks, 15,000 were on myrobolan. The 

 soil was alluvial and fairly heavy. The winter when these stocks 

 were carrying dormant buds was a severe one, resulting in floods 

 for several days, for two or three of which the nurseries were 

 under water from the overflow of the river. The effect was 

 that in the middle of the growing season (that is, I5th June in 

 California, the date we visited the nurseries) out of 105,000 

 prunes on peach, 1,500 scattered trees only were alive and grow- 

 ing freely, and all the 15,000 on myrobolan stood 4 ft. high and 

 not a bud lost. As Japanese plums do equally well on either 

 root on any peach soil, take them if possible on peach root and 

 vice versa. 



The almond root, which we have also tested, we do not care 

 about for any sort of plum or prune ; in this country it does not 

 as a stock, fulfil our expectations, which are based on the place 

 it held in the estimation of growers in certain soils in California. 



REMEDY AFTER GETTING WRONG SORTS PLANTED OR 

 VARIETIES PLANTED ON WRONG ROOTS. 



\Ve have elsewhere (under the heading " What to do with 

 Old Orchards * J ) explained the great importance of getting new 

 varieties into bearing age in the shortest possible time to test the 

 value of the variety in the district-. Let us suppose that a certain 

 planter has set 1,000 trees in, say, ten different varieties in ap- 

 ples, pears and peaches, and finds out when they have been three 

 or four years growing that several hundred trees are of varieties 

 quite unsuited to the district in which he intends growing ; there 



