526 



FRUIT GARDEN. 



sorts of plums, such as the Damson, Wentworth, 

 BuUace, &o., are propagated by suckers or lay- 

 ers without grafting at all. The Damson repro- 

 duces itself by seed, little changed from the 

 parent ; but it makes the worst of all stocks, 

 and, besides, the buds are difficult to take on it. 

 To obtain new or improved varieties, seeds of 

 the finest kinds are sown, sometimes promiscu- 

 ously, at other times after a careful fecundation 

 of the flowers of one variety with those of an- 

 other. This is the most certain way of obtain- 

 ing varieties partaking more or less of the qua- 

 lities of the parents. The Americans use for 

 stocks such as the Blue gage, Horse-plum, &c., 

 but originate a great number annually from 

 seed, and by this means have obtained many 

 escellenli varieties. 



The seed should be sown as soon as they are 

 collected, placing them in drills an inch and a 

 half in depth. In good soil the seedlings will 

 attain a height of 18 inches or more the first 

 season. In the autumn or ensuing spring they 

 are taken up, their tap-roots shortened, and the 

 strongest selected and planted in nursery lines, 

 where they remain one year, and are then cut 

 down to the ground, when they will throw up 

 straight handsome shoots 6 feet high the first 

 year. Apricots or plums, intended for stan- 

 dards or riders, are budded on them the follow- 

 ing summer. The Brussels stock, on account 

 of its vigorous growth, is often preferred for 

 this purpose, although it is less durable than the 

 common stock. Many nurserymen, and with 

 great good reason, use the common stock, and 

 insert the bud about 9 inches from the ground, 

 and find, if the stocks are strong and soil 

 good, that they will send up shoots standard 

 high the first year : the less vigorous will attain 

 that height the second year. The common 

 stock makes the most durable trees. Plums to be 

 trained as dwarfs are grafted instead of budded. 



Soil. — The plum in its wilding state affects a 

 rather light and dry soil, and in such it is found 

 to succeed in many gardens. In one of a loamy 

 nature, and of moderate texture, it appears to 

 prosper, but best of all in a good strong 

 loamy soil, provided it be dry at bottom. In 

 light sandy soils the fruit does not attain so 

 large a size, nor does it set so freely upon the 

 trees. That the plum prefers a strong soil is 

 evident from what occurs in the richer and 

 stronger loams of England, of which the Royal 

 Gardens at Frogmore offer an excellent ex- 

 ample, where the finest plums we have seen are 

 yearly produced. Downing, in speaking of soil, 

 says of American experience ; " The plum will 

 grow vigorously in almost every part of this 

 country (America), but it only bears its finest 

 and most abundant crops in heavy loams, or in 

 soils in which there is a considerable mixture 

 of clay. In sandy soils the trees blossom and 

 set plentiful crops, but they are rarely per- 

 fected, falling a prey to the curculis, an insect 

 which harbours in the soil, and seems to find it 

 difficult to penetrate or live in any one of a 

 heavy texture, while a light warm sandy soil 

 is exceedingly favourable to its propagation." 

 The comparative absence of insects on the plum 

 in strong soils is conspicuous enough in our own 



country. However, besides the favourable con- 

 dition of Ught soils to the propagation of in- 

 sects, the trees growing on these strong ones 

 are much more vigorous, and better able to re- 

 sist their attacks. Regarding depth of soil, that 

 should not exceed 2^ feet; and should it natu- 

 rally exceed that depth, then it were better to 

 lay pavement supported on piers a foot or so in 

 height, so as to leave a shallow vault under the 

 roots. A solid flooring of pavement, or even 

 concreting, which would be much cheaper, has 

 the disadvantage, particularly in strong soils, of 

 retaining water, whereas vaulting them prevents 

 such an evil. The intention of vaulting is to 

 prevent the roots taking a downward direction, 

 and it greatly facilitates the operation of root- 

 pruning when it has to be had recourse to, as a 

 circular trench opened all round presents all the 

 roots to view, and obviates the difficulty of 

 undermining to reach the roots that take a 

 downward direction. 



Situation and planting. — Many of the finer 

 plums require to be planted against a wall, as 

 the Reine Claude de Bavay, Coe's golden drop, 

 &o. ; and in elevated situations and cold cli- 

 mates, these, to attain perfection, require a 

 southern exposure; whereas, in warmer locali- 

 ties, they, as well as most of the other superior 

 varieties, will be found to ripen perfectly on 

 walls of east or west aspects, and in the most 

 favourable situations of all, even as dwarf stan- 

 dards. Much, however, depends, where the 

 soil and climate are both cold and humid, on 

 the depth of the border they are planted in. 

 Vaulting has not only the property of securing 

 a sufficient degree of dryness to the roots, but 

 where carried sufficiently out, and the external 

 air admitted into the vault, of elevating the 

 temperature of the soil about the roots from 

 7° to 9°. — (Vide Vine-bobdees.) It may be 

 taken as a rule that, in all cold soils and situ- 

 ations, every fruit tree will derive important 

 advantage from being so treated. The general- 

 ity of plums succeed in most places when 

 trained as espaliers, in which case the horizon- 

 tal mode of laying in the branches should be 

 adopted. A great many do as well, if not bet- 

 ter, when planted as dwarf standards as when 

 planted against walls. By judicious attention 

 to their roots, they will require very little 

 branch-pruning, and produce abundant crops 

 even when wrought upon the ordinary stocks. 

 In former times, before root-pruning was 

 attended to, all sorts of trees were planted at a 

 very great distance apart ; for example, Harri- 

 son directs for a wall 12 feet high the plums 

 trained horizontally to be set 20 feet asunder, 

 "a greater or less distance according to the 

 height of the wall." Now, under judicious 

 root-management, half that distance will be suf- 

 ficient, accommodating double the number of 

 trees. Full standard plums should never be 

 planted, unless it be the Damson, and those of 

 its kind used for preserving, &c. ; and these, if 

 planted in grass, will suffer less loss of crop than 

 were the fruit to drop off and fall on the naked 

 soil. They in this way also occupy more space, 

 and cause more shade and interruption of the 

 air to other trees or crops around them, than 



