THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. I37 



of plums in Japan rather than to a variety. Babcock, which is said to have 

 been imported by Biirbank in 1885 and named for Colonel E. F. Babcock, 

 a nurseryman of Little Rock, Arkansas, has been described by Bailey 

 as indistingtiishable from Abundance. Botankio, described in the Georgia 

 Horticultural Society Report for 1889, proved to be the Abundance as 

 tested at the Cornell Experiment Station. The Chase plum, also dissem- 

 inated in New York under the name Yellow Japan, was bought by the 

 R. G. Chase Company, Geneva, New York, for the Abundance, but as it 

 was thought to blossom and fruit later than that variety, it was dis- 

 tributed as a new plum; in 1897 Bailey considered it the same as Chabot, 

 but in 1899 he stated that it and Abundance were identical. The Douglas 

 plum is also identical. Dr. J. T. Whitaker of Tyler, Texas, imported this 

 variety and introduced it in 1886 under the name of Hytankayo. Bailey, 

 who tested Whitaker's variety from trees obtained from T. V. Munson, 

 Denison, Texas, found a yellow-fruited strain and to distingtdsh the purple 

 form named the latter Munson.' As this name had been applied to a 

 native pltim, R. H. Price, of the Texas Experiment Station, in 1894 re- 

 named the variety calling it Douglas.' There have been two types of this 

 Douglas plum disseminated; Bailey, in 1899, found no difference between 

 it and Abundance except that the Douglas seemed to have a little drier 

 flesh; others testing Douglas fotmd it to be identical with the Chabot. 

 Burbank No. 2, imported by Luther Burbank in 1885 and introduced by 

 him in 1889, is very similar if not identical with the Abundance. Oriole, 

 recently introduced by the Texas Nursery Company, Sherman, Texas, is so 

 nearlv like Abundance as to be unworthy of a separate name. The 

 American Pomological Society added Abundance to its fruit catalog list 

 in 1897. 



Tree large, vigorous, vasiform, open-topped, hardy in New York, very productive, 

 susceptible to attacks of shot-hole fungus; branches rough, dark ash-gray, inclined to 

 split when overloaded, with few, slightly raised lenticels; branchlets slender, short, 

 with short intemodes, red early in the season changing to dark brown, glossy, 

 glabrous, with numerous, inconspicuous, small lenticels; leaf -buds small, short, conical, 

 plump, free. 



Leaves folded upward, narrow-obovate or oblanceolate, peach-like, one and three- 

 eighths inches wide, three and one-quarter inches long, thin; upper surface light 

 green, smooth, glabrous, with grooved midrib; lower surface pale green, pubescent 

 on the midrib and larger veins; apex taper-pointed, base cuneate, margin very finely 



'^ Cornell Sta. Bui. 62:2 y. 1894. 

 'Tex. Sta. Bui. 32:488. 1894. 



