10 BULLETIN 179, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUEE. 



Bassett, Cumberland, Marianna, Miner, Newman, Weaver, and Wild 

 Goose. 



Only a few years later Eliphas Cope (14, p. 8) published at New 

 Lisbon, now simply Lisbon, in eastern Ohio, a pamphlet of 45 pages 

 devoted entirely to plums, but here again the native varieties are 

 dismissed with a single paragraph: 



The native plums should not be planted but sparingly, only when they have been 

 tried and given satisfaction. North of 40° latitude we question if they will give sat- 

 isfaction or remuneration for-'labor. 



The author of this statement must have been quite unfamiliar with 

 the development and utilization of the native species taking place 

 at that time in the States of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, 

 where they w^ere rapidly becoming of great importance. 



The brief discussions of the native species by the authors quoted 

 above show that after two centuries of occupation by Europeans the 

 native species held a relatively very unimportant place in American 

 pomology. In 1850, a few years earher and later, respectively, 

 than the pubhcations of Barry and Downing, the center of population 

 in the United States was near Parkersburg, W. Va. The people of 

 the Southern States were httle engaged in fruit raising, and the 

 industry was therefore mainly confined to the States east of the Great 

 Lakes and north of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers, a region in the greater 

 part of which the varieties of domestica and insititia origin are grown 

 with success. As the population of the country increased and spread 

 westward beyond the region in which European varieties of plums 

 were successfully grown, attention began to be directed more and 

 more toward the utilization of native species, and this interest was 

 accelerated by reason of the ravages of the curcuho and the behef 

 of many people that native plums were less affected by the insect. 



The first efforts at plum culture, however, even in the States of 

 Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa were mainly with those varieties of 

 the Old World species that had been known in the Eastern States. 

 Failing with these, the attention of fruit growers was of necessity 

 turned to the native varieties, and a few were quite optimistic as to the 

 outcome. Among these was J. S. Stickney (69), of Wauwatosa, Wis., 

 who, in an address before the Iowa Horticultural Society in 1877, said: 



I am dreaming that among these [native plums] there is something valuable; their 

 endm'ance, productiveness, and perfect hardiness should and nvust be made useful to 

 us, and we have no right to rest or flag in our efforts until we have an orchard of native 

 plums that shall command in market two to four dollars jjer bushel, and yield crops 

 as abundant and frequent as the wild ones in our thickets now do. About the pos- 

 sibility of this there is very little doubt * * *. 



A httle later D. B. Wier, a prominent horticulturist at Lacon, 111., 

 grew all the native varieties he could secure, while in Iowa, J. L. 

 Budd, Capt. Watrous, and others very early recognized the value of 



