286 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK 



MONARCH 



Prunus domestica 



I. Gard. Chron. 19:815. 1883. 2. Rev. Hort. 252, PI. 1892. 3. Guide Prat. 163, 360. 1895. 

 4. Cornell Sta. Bui. 131:181 fig. 40 V, 189. 1897. 5. Rural N. Y. 57:670, 671 fig. 310. 1898. 

 6. Mich. Sta. Bui. 169:242, 247. 1899. 7. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 39. 1899. 8. Waugh Plum CuU. 

 116. 1901. 9. Thompson Card. .Aijr'i 4:158 fig. 956. 1901. zo. Garden 62:2^?,. 1902. ii. Gard. 

 Chron. 36:282. 1904. 12. Ohio Sta. Bui. 162:242 fig., 256, 257. 1905. 



Monarque 3. Prune Monarque 2. 



No plum of recent introduction has so quickly attained popularity 

 as the Monarch. Of the great number of plums imported from the Old 

 World, this is one of the few which has proved worthy of a place with the 

 best American varieties for American conditions, an illustration of the 

 importance of testing all foreign fruits. The plate shows the fruit of this 

 variety well, though the plums look smaller in the illustration than in 

 nature — an illusion always accompanying the reproduction in exact size 

 of the photograph of a round object. The nicely turned form and the 

 rich purple color of this plum make it a handsome fruit. While the quality 

 is not of the best, Monarch ranks high among purple pltims as a dessert 

 fruit, few plums of this color being especially palatable to eat out of hand. 

 The variety is not remarkable for any of its tree-characters, yet they aver- 

 age well with other plums and, with those of the fruit, make a variety 

 quite above the average and give it a place among the best commercial 

 sorts. Monarch is now so widely disseminated and so largely grown in 

 New York, that we shall know shortly whether it is to hold the high place 

 it has so quickly taken among market plums in this State. 



Monarch, a seedling of the Autumn Compote, was grown by Thomas 

 Rivers, Sawbridgeworth, England and was introduced by the originator 

 in 1885. English publications described and figured this variety in 1883 

 but there are no notices of it in American pomological literature untU 

 1897. Two years later it was placed on the fruit list of the American Pomo- 

 logical Society catalog and recommended for the north-eastern section of the 

 United States. Notwithstanding the fact that the variety is relatively new, 

 it is now offered for sale by nearly every nurseryman in this coimtry. 



Tree of medium size and vigor, upright-spreading, open-topped, hardy at Geneva, 

 usually productive; branches ash-gray, smooth, with small lenticels; branchlets of 

 medium thickness and length, with internodes of average length, greenish-red, changing 

 to brownish-drab, dull, thickly pubescent, with obscure, small lenticels; leaf-buds 

 large, long, pointed, appressed; leaf-scars somewhat swollen. 



