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Bottling. 
Ickworth’s Imperatrice Denyer’s Victoria 
Coe’s Golden Drop Mirabelle von Flowtow’s 
Yellow Magnum Bonum Green Gage. 
Sorts anp ASPECT. 
The plum will grow well in nearly every part of this colony, 
but it only bears its finest fruit on loamy soils, say 15 to 18 inches 
deep, resting on a clay subsoil, provided the subsoil is open and 
properly drained. The ground should be well trenched or deeply 
ploughed previous to planting, to keep the roots as near the surface 
as possible. 
It adapts itself to almost any aspect, but it does best in a north- 
western one. If planted in an eastern aspect it does not do so 
well, because if there has been a frost in the night the rising sun 
thaws it on the leaves too quickly ; but when planted in a north- 
west aspect the atmosphere gets warmer about it more gradually. 
PRUNING. 
In the first year when the tree has pushed out young shoots 
tub off all but the three or four top ones, and allow them to grow 
to form the crown or head. 
If the tree has been pinched in the nursery and these three 
or four shoots have been formed cut them back to three or four 
buds from the base, and then when they have grown in the spring 
rub off all shoots that it may not be found necessary to retain for 
the future formation of the tree. In the following year it will have 
made a considerable length of wood, which should be cut back, 
leaving five or six buds according to the length of the stock. 
In the third year after planting allow an increased growth 
until the tree begins to fruit, which would be about the third and 
fourth year. 
A good deal of unnecessary winter pruning of young trees 
can be avoided if a judicious system of summer pruning be 
practised. 
MopvE oF BEARING. 
All the varieties of plums produce their fruit on the small 
natural spurs along the stems of the bearing shoots of one, two, 
or more years’ growth. 
Owing to the plum being one of the hardiest of fruit trees, open 
standard culture is generally practised. 
It requires little or no pruning after the fourth year beyond 
that of thinning out crowded wood or taking away decayed or 
broken branches, and this should be done during the autumn 
months as soon as the leaves have fallen. The ordinary way of 
pruning is to cut off two-thirds of last season’s wood and leave 
one-third. 
