62 THE FAEM. 



Howell's Early. — Rather small, oval, slightly angular, suture obsolete; 

 skin light brown, often greenish-yellow in the shade; bloom thin, blue; 

 stalk three-fourths of an inch long, slender, not sunk; flesh amber- 

 colored, juicy, sweet, perfumed, free from the small oval stone. Quite 

 early, ripening a little before the Morocco and early Orleans. Shoots 

 slender, gray, downy. Tree very productive. Newburgh, New York. 



Orleans Early. — {Syn. New Orleans, Hampton Court, Monsieur Ha- 

 tif.) Size medium, round oval, suture shallow, stalk half an inch long, 

 stout, or longer and slender; cavity moderate; skin reddish-pui-ple, 

 slightly marbled ; flesh yellowish-green, rather rich. Quite early. 



DISEASES, EVSECTS, ETC.— The Black Knot, or Black Gum.-^The rem- 

 edy for this is to cut away and burn all the affected portions of the 

 bark or wood. When it appears on the bodies or large limbs, all the 

 diseased wood is to be cut away and the wound washed with a solution 

 of copperas or strong brine. Leached wood-ashes and salt liberally 

 applied to plum-trees promote their health and growth. 



The Curcnlio is the great enemy of the plum, as of other stone fruits. 

 It commences its work when the fruit is about the size of a pea. It 

 makes a crescent-shaped incision in the fruit, in which it deposits its 

 egg, which soon hatches into a small white larva, which feeds upon and 

 destroys the fruit. The insect falls with the fruit, and enters the ground, 

 from which it emerges the following spring in the form of a beetle. 

 They can fly only during quite warm weather and in the heat of the 

 day. Early in the morning they are nearly torpid; and this is the 

 time to destroy them. 



Remedy. — The only eflfectual remedy is to jar them from the tree 

 while in the act of depositing their eggs upon sheets spread beneath the 

 tree. The following from the " Fruit Culturist," is worthy of general 

 attention : 



"A quick and sudden jar is important, and may be given by the 

 stroke of a mallet, upon the short stump of one of the smaller limbs, 

 sawed off for this purpose, and which prevents bruising the bark. Or 

 a mallet may be thickly covered with woolen cloth encased in India 

 rubber, to prevent injury to the tree ; but the jar is less sudden in this 

 case. David Thomas, (who first proposed jarring down on sheets,) in 

 a communication to the Genesee Farmer, in 1832, says: 'Not three 

 days ago, I saw that many of the plums were punctured, and began to 

 suspect that shaking the tree was not suflacient. Under a tree in a re- 

 mote part of a fruit garden, having spread the sheets, I therefore made 

 the following experiment: on shaking it well, I caught five curculios; 

 on jarring it with the hand, I caught twelve more ; and on striking the 

 tree with a stone, eight more dropped on the sheets. I was now con- 

 vinced that I had been in an error ; and calling in the necessary assistance, 

 and using a hammer to jar the tree violently, we caught, in less than an 

 houc^ more than two hundred and sixty of these insects.' With large 

 trees, it may be necessary to shake each limb separately, by means of a 

 pole with the woolen and India rubber knob, already described, at its 

 extremity. 



"The best time for this work "is in the cool of the morning, when 

 the insects are partly torpid with cold, and drop quickly. At mid-day 



