THE PLUM. 353 



done before mid-summer, to prevent tlie flow of g-iim. Old trees 

 that have become barren, may be renovated by heading them 

 in pretty severely, covering the wounds with our solution of 

 gum shellac, and giving them a good top dressing at the roots. 



Soil. The plum will grow vigorously in almost every part 

 of this country, but it only bears its finest and most abundant 

 crops in heavy loams, or in soils in Avhich there is a considerable 

 mixture of clay. In sandy soils, the tree blossoms and sets 

 plentiful crops, but they are rarely perfected, falling a prey to 

 the curculio, an insect that harbours in the soil, and seems to find 

 it difficult to penetrate or live in one of a heavy texture, while 

 a warm, light, sandy soil, is exceedingly favourable to its propaga- 

 tion. It is also undoubtedly true, that a heavy soil is naturally 

 the most favourable one. The surprising facility with which 

 superior new varieties are raised merely by ordinary reproduc- 

 tion from seed, in certain parts of the valley ol the Hudson, as 

 at Hudson, or near Albany, where the soil is quite clayey, and 

 also the delicious flavour and great productiveness and health of 

 the plum tree there almost without any care, while in adjacent 

 districts of rich sandy land it is a very uncertain bearer, are \ cry 

 convincing proofs of the great importance of clayey soil for this 

 fruit. 



Where the whole soil of a place is light and sandy, we would 

 recommend the employment of pure yellow loam or yellow clay, 

 in the pUce of manure, when preparing the border or spaces for 

 planting the plum. Very heavy clay, burned slowly by mixing 

 it in large heaps with brush or faggots, is at once an admirable 

 manure and alterative for such soils. Swamp muck is also 

 one of the best substances, and especially that from salt water 

 marshes. 



Common salt we have found one of the best fertilizers for the 

 plum tree. It not only greatly promotes its health and luxuri- 

 ance, but from the dislike which most insects have to this sub- 

 stance, it drives away or destroys most of those to which the 

 plum is liable. The most successful plum grower in our neigh- 

 bourhood, applies, with the best results, half a peck of coarse salt 

 to the surface of the ground under each bearing tree, annually, 

 about the first of April. 



Insects and diseases. There are but two drawbacks to the 

 cultivation of the plum in the United States, but they are in 

 some districts so great as almost to destroy the value of this tree. 

 These are the curculio^ and the knots. 



The curculio, or plum-weevil, [Rhynchcenus Nenuphar^) is 

 the uncompromising foe of all smooth stone fruits. The culti- 

 vator of the Plum, the Nectarine, and the Apricot, in many 

 parts of the country, after a flattering profusion of snowy blos- 

 soms and an abundant promise in the thickly set young crops 

 of fruit, has the fi-equent mortification of seeing nearly all, or 



