228 



THE POMOLOGIST AND GARDENER. 



1871 



quite the rule. Of course -when such fruit reaches 

 the city market it is at once assigned to its place, 

 and a corresponding price is determined for it. 

 But too often this i, ixed fruit is sent to customers 

 along the railroads, at small towns, who have order- 

 ed and paid for it in advance. 



The law is plain on this point, that all goods of 

 this kind be merchantable. But the remedy in this 

 case is inadequate, and only the reputation of the 

 farmer suffers, but not in dollars, for the demand is 

 good, and some new customer comes up to be vic- 

 timized. In most cases, as much or even a better 

 price could have been obtained by carefully assort- 

 ing the fruit and selling the best at a higher price, 

 and eitlier make cider of the refuse or sell it at a 

 less price. No fruit grower can afford to send bad 

 fruit to his customers, even if he gets the pay in 

 advance, for it will sometime come up against him 

 when he may least desire it." 



Dubuque, Iowa. 



Victim. 



Clilckasaw Plains. 



Br H. H. McAfee, Madison, Wis. 



At a late meeting of the Northern Illinois Hor- 

 ticultural Society, at Rockford, the Committee on 

 Chickasaw plums, of which I was a member, re- 

 ported in substance, as follows : 



A class of plums derived from the Prunus Ghicasa 

 and known under various names, as " Miner," 

 "Townsend," "Hinkley," "Isabell," "Peach," 

 Chickasaw, &c., is coming into general cultivation 

 in the States of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minneso- 

 ta, and Nebraska, and where tried are giving gen- 

 eral satisfaction on account of the following points 

 of excellence : 



1. The tree is most hardy and long lived of any 

 plum tried in the localities named. 



3. Its fruitage is abundant and continuous. 



3. The tree and fruit is less subject to injury by 

 insects than is any other plum, the curculio larviE 

 being extremely rare, and the gouger not common 

 enough to injure the crop. 



4. The quality of fruit of the best varieties is 

 good, and the fruit is everywhere popular and 

 meets with ready sale at good prices. 



5. For profit to the planter these plums are un- 

 excelled. 



The history, so far as now known, of the oldest 

 stock of these plums planted within the territory 

 named above is as follows : 



In 1833 a man named Knight brought from south- 

 ern Ohio by boat to Galena, 111., a stock of small 

 trees, which he disposed of to the late Major Hink- 

 ley and others. The trees planted by Major Hink- 

 ley are still in full vigor and bearing and may be 

 seen at his old place near Galena. The year follow- 

 ing the first importation, Knight brought out a sec- 



ond lot of trees and planted most of them on Mr. 

 George Townsend's farm in the eastern part of Jo 

 Daviess County. From these stocks the most if not 

 all of the trees disseminated under the various 

 names mentioned above have sprung, and as Major 

 Hinkley was largely instrumental in securing the 

 general cultivation of the plum, generously giving 

 them away to his neighbors and friends, and as he 

 grew them first in the west, it was decided that the 

 name "Hinkley" should be, with more propriety 

 than any other, applied to all of the plums spring- 

 ing from Knight's importation (except seedlings.) 



The name "Miner" applied by Mr. Barber at a 

 late date, in honor of Mr. Miner from whom he de- 

 rived his trees, is not defensible on any rules of po- 

 mological nomenclature, and the other names men- 

 tioned above are in a like manner objectionable. 



As this class of plums is variable in their seed- 

 lings they must be propagated by extension, and 

 not from seed to insure satisfactory results, the seed- 

 lings of the wild Chickasaw frequently producing 

 a miserably worthless fruit of small size. This 

 Hinkley plum is so unlike them that it deserves a 

 special designation referring to its known origin, 

 and under which it may be generally distinguish d 

 from its wilding progenitor. 



So many varieties are in cultivation, and many 

 of them of poor quality, owing to the planting of 

 seedlings, that it is most desirable that Nurserymen 

 should supply themselves with genuine stock, and 

 discard all others, and hereafter propagate by root 

 cutting or in some other way so that they may be 

 sure and have the true variety. 



[The reading of the foregoing paper at the late 

 meeting of the Wisconsin State Horticultural Soci- 

 ety, was followed by the passage of a resolution 

 adopting the name Hinkley as that by which the 

 Society would recognize the plum in question, hith- 

 erto known principally in Wisconsin by the name 

 Miner.— Eds. Western Farmer.] 



Price's Sweet. 



Ed. Pomologist and Gardener:^ As there ap- 

 pears to be some controversy about the identity of 

 " Price's Sweet," I will stick in a word. I have an 

 apple under that name and send you an outline 

 from a specimen just taken from one of my trees. 

 I am no hand at describing fruit. It is of the color 

 of the Rock Rimmon. It is ripe in September, but 

 will keep till January. It is a pleasant sweet apple, 

 rather juicy, firm flesh. It is a good and early bear- 

 er. I have had trees blossom four years from the 

 graft. In hardiness the tree stands next to Duch- 

 ess, I knew the apple in Ohio. 



Christian Stkinmkn. 



Colesburg, Iowa. 



