672 THE PERSIMMON. 



large importations were made by Rev. Henry Loomls, of San 

 Francisco, and sent all over the country. His circulars, with 

 descriptions and brilliantly colored full-size illustrations of 

 several varieties, astonished and fascinated fruit-growers, in- 

 citing them to try this, the most interesting pomological 

 novelty ever brought forward. Many of these imported trees 

 began to bear in two or three years, and, encouraged by the 

 beauty, size, and excellence of the fruit, a large demand for 

 the trees sprang up wherever the winter climate was found 

 suflSciently mild. 



As a general rule, the imported trees proved short-lived and 

 unsatisfactory. They were for the most part deficient in 

 roots, and did not take kindly to our soil like the native per- 

 simmon, which, after being tried as a stock with complete 

 success, showed a better adaptation even than seedlings of the 

 kaki grown here. To insure good crops it is necessary to bud 

 or graft from the best and most prolific varieties. Seedlings, 

 usually having few perfect flowers and sometimes none, are 

 unproductive and inferior. 



Bearing begins early — often at two years — and the fruit sets 

 so freely that, unless judiciously thinned, the trees become 

 dwarfed by the tax on their energies. Trees from seed planted 

 in the fall may be budded the following summer, and by an- 

 other year will often reach a height of six feet and be ready 

 for planting in orchard. Ten to fifteen feet each way is 

 recommended as a suitable distance apart. After getting into 

 regular bearing there is but a slow and gradual increase of 

 wood, the strength being absorbed in the production of fruit. 

 Some heavy-bearing sorts remain permanently dwarfed, but 

 there are instances of isolated trees reaching a height of 

 twenty-five or thirty feet, with a corresponding spread of 

 branches, and a yearly record of thousands of fruit. The 

 roots extend to a great distance, like those of the fig, but gen- 

 erally strike deeply enough to cause little interference when 

 among other trees. Much of the nourishment seems to be 

 drawn up from the subsoil. Native stocks in low-lying pine 

 barrens, where the land is sour, filled with roots of the most 

 persistent wild grasses and shrubs, and never cultivated, have, 

 when topped and grafted with choice varieties of kaki, made 

 fine heads and produced a profusion of beautiful, high-colored 



