■SSITEMBER 30, 189I.] 



Garden and Forest. 



463 



the richest and sweetest of plums, and when well ripened on 

 open sunny trees is very beautiful, a ball of gold with crimson 

 cheeks. It is unexcelled for sweetmeats and rich preserves. 

 It melts down too easily to be a handsome fruit in cans. 

 Washington is a handsome, large, sweet plum, oval in shape, 

 ripening just after the Green Gage. It is moderate in flavor, a 

 great bearer, but not a specially good plum for any purpose. It 

 melts down as soon as it is ripe and becomes useless. On the 

 whole it might as well be discarded. Yellow Gage, as I have it, 

 is, in shape and size, a duplicate of Washington, but ripens ten 

 days later. It is of moderate quality and excellent texture for 

 •canning and shipping. The color is good, and for table use it 

 is excellent when fully ripe. Lombard, or Bleeker, is ripe with 

 Yellow Gage, that is, from the first ot September to the 

 fifteenth. It is large and fine-looking, a reddish purple. No 

 plum is so popular. It is sufficiently solid, and is midway be- 

 tween the tart and the sweet sorts. The tree multiplies rapidly 

 by suckers, and is easily obtained and generally planted. This 

 variety brings less in market than some others because it is so 

 abundant. Robinson is a handsome, small, native plum, 

 vellow-marbled red. It is of about the same value as other 

 native plums. I do not yet find anv that equal in quality the 

 best that are of European origin. Wild Goose never bears at 

 all with me. Abundance, a renamed Japan sort (the Botan), 

 is a fine plum and very prolific. Coe's Golden Drop ripens in 

 September, from the first to the twentieth. This is not a firm 

 plum, and it is too small. A tree full will not measure a 

 bushel. Clingstone Damson is an excellent fruit for cooking 

 .and preserving. It is round, of medium size and high flavor. 

 It is fit to pick by September twentieth, but is better if left on 

 the trees until October. Shropshire Damson I see no reason 

 for preferring to the preceding, although many do prefer it. 

 It resists the attack of curculios quite successfully and bears 

 solid masses of fruit. The noblest plum of all for home use, 

 and one of the best for market and all purposes, is Bavay's 

 Green Gage. This remarkable plum is an improved Green 

 Gage. It ripens the last of September, is exceedingly rich, and, 

 unlike the Green Gage, is firm. It is very large, aveiaging 

 with the largest Bleekers. It should become a universal 

 family fruit. It is handsome, and the tree bears well. Prunus 

 Simo'ni is an interesting plum that looks like an apricot and 

 grows on a tree so upright as to suggest a Lombardy Poplar. 

 Pricnus Pissardi, the pupledeaved Plum, bears fruit of fine 

 texture, the deepest purple-color and very early, ripening the 

 middle of August, and is one of the handsomest. 



For home use, I should select Magnum Bonum (or Duane), 

 Bleeker (or Lombard), Green Gage, Simoni, Bavay and Dam- 

 son. For market it is desirable to have a long season of 

 ripening, beginning with Magnum Bonum and ending with 

 Bavay and Damsons. The custom of sending plums to mar- 

 ket in crates, like those used for berries, is now spreading. 

 Packing, heatingand rotting are thus avoided, and the fruit is in 

 fine condition for retailing. The profits to the grower are one- 

 third greater, and pay him for all extra care. The plum is a 

 tender fruit, decaying quickly, and must be handled with care. 



I have never sprayed my Plum-trees, being deterred by the 

 experience of my friends, who have spoiled the foliage with a 

 solution of one pound of London purple to two hundred gal- 

 lons of water. This solution I have found admirable for Apple- 

 trees. For Plums I follow the well-tested plan of jarring on 

 sheets twice a day for three weeks. Two boys carry the 

 sheet, which is a large spread of cotton cloth tacked to light 

 poles on the sides, and on one end slit up to the middle, so 

 that the tree stands in the middle of the cloth. A man butts 

 the tree sharply with a rammer padded on the end, to avoid 

 bruising the bark. The curculios fall, and are quickly gath- 

 ered and destroyed. This is absolutely a remedy, if you begin 

 as.the petals fall andcontinuetorbetween twoand three weeks. 



Plum-knot is never a necessary nuisance, although it will 

 appear to some extent each year. The knot should be cut off 

 with a sharp knife, always cutting an inch below and above 

 •each excrescence. If this were universally done the disease 

 would soon be quite exterminated. The worms inside the 

 soft warty swellings must not be taken as the cause of the 

 knot, but as a coincidence. It is a fungal growth. There 

 are trees wholly given over to the pest, and it spreads to 

 healthy trees. Some varieties are much more subject to 

 attack than others. Worst of all is the English Hesse Plum. 

 This I still grow, but the battle is so constant that I retain but 

 few trees. The cutting should be done twice a year, to be 

 sure it is thoroughly done — once after picking the crop, and 

 again in November, after the leaves fall. 



The plum is so very hardy and so useful for canning and 

 for preserving, that it should receive more general planting 

 and more intelligent care. If the two enemies mentioned are 



attended to, the crop is assured. I have had no difficulty in 

 marketing over fifty bushels at very remunerative prices. 

 The chief point is nice handling and putting into market when 

 exactly ripe, not green, and not over-ripe. Among those I 

 have not named, McLaughlin, Pond, Bradshaw, Peters' Yellow 

 Gasre and Spaulding are all fine, as grown by my neighbors. 



The Plum-tree is, at best, not long-lived, and new trees 

 should be planted continuously. These can, in some instances, 

 be multiplied rapidly from suckers, as is the case with Bleeker, 

 Green Gage and Damson, if you leave these on their own roots 

 as I have. A Plum-tree exhausts itself by bearing, or is out of 

 health and beauty, in five years. I find that the crop is in- 

 creased by growing trees quite close together, but the quality 

 is always better on trees grown openly in sunny spots. 



Clinton, N. Y. E. P. Powell. 



The Planting of Hardy Bulbs. 



OUR public parks and gardens have shown us for years the 

 possibilities of floral decoration with plants of a bulbous 

 nature. The great majority of these are spring-flowering, and, 

 in consequence, die down early in the summer, and need re- 

 placing with other suitable plants. I would like to offer a few 

 remarks upon the culture of bulbs which are really desirable, 

 and, at the same time, hardy in the eastern states. 



The best soil for bulb culture is that of a sandy nature, but 

 a stiff clay soil may be used with good success provided a 

 liberal quantity of sharp sand or grit is mixed with it and also 

 placed immediately under the bulbs. I was shown recently 

 some soil taken from one of the bulb farms in Holland, and it 

 was composed almost entirely of white sand enriched by large 

 applications of thoroughly decomposed cow manure, the re- 

 mains of which, on shaking the bottle, were easily seen on the 

 surface of the heavier sand. It is evident from this example 

 that there cannot be a soil too sandy to grow bulbs successfully, 

 if it is well fertilized and sufficient moisture is assured, until 

 June at least. If the soil is heavy, plenty of sand must be 

 added. Naturally moist soils, with no means of draining, 

 would offer the worst condition for bulb culture, assuming that 

 the bulbs are to be planted, not for one season only, but per- 

 manently. I am satisfied that this can be done with the major- 

 ity of bulbs, with the exception of Hyacinths ; hut, although 

 these bulbs are perfectly hardy, and will flower for several 

 years, the bloom of the first season will never be equaled. 



Of strictly hardy bulbs there is no genus that will give so 

 much real pleasure as the Narcissus, of which much has been 

 already said in the columns of Garden and Forest. The 

 long lists that bulb-dealers are offering to their patrons, 

 and the number of communications received concerning Nar- 

 cissus culture, indicate the growing popularity of this flower. 

 In a list recently received from an American dealer the genus 

 is subdivided into the different sections, as in the lists of the 

 large European dealers who make a specialty of the Narcissus. 

 Our experiments with Narcissus, begun last fall, were distinctly 

 successful, as was the large bed of Asters planted between 

 the rows this summer. We shall now give the bed a mod- 

 erate top-dressing, and shall expect double the quantity of 

 flowers next spring. There has been just one incident to mar 

 the entire success of the plan. A zealous, but unintelligent 

 assistant, after removing the Asters from the bed, proceeded 

 to pull up the labels he found there, which, of course, belonged 

 to the Narcissus. 



We intend to double our planting this fall. The bulbs were 

 ordered early in July, and August delivery insisted upon, but 

 they have not yet arrived. Directly after they reach us they 

 will be planted in rows six to eight inches deep, and six to eight 

 inches apart in the rows, according to the variety, the rows 

 themselves eighteen inches apart. This allows of hoeing and 

 keeping the beds clean until the annuals are planted between 

 them in summer, when the weeds must be pulled by hand. 

 Writers have differed as to the depth at which Narcissus should 

 be planted, and have doubted the advisability of growing other 

 plants over them in summer. It is only necessary to add that 

 our soil is light, with a gravelly subsoil, and our success has 

 always been certain with deep planting in soils of this nature. 

 I do not anticipate any harm to the bulbs from the planting 

 over them, as their roots are dormant when the other plants are 

 growing, and, ina wild state, they always grow in pastures where 

 they have a perennial covering of herbage above and around 

 them. I have an idea that premature ripening of the foliage, 

 which often occurs here during a hot and dry season, is consid- 

 erably lessened by the partial shade afforded, both to the soil and 

 foliage of Narcissus, by the summer occupants of the beds. 

 Narcissus are equally good for massing in beds, as is done 

 with Tulips ; but for this purpose the commoner kinds should 



