THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 311 



It is a piece of good luck, a matter almost wholly of luck, when, as in this 

 case, but one parent is known, to secure as fine a fruit as the Pearl plum. 

 The variety now under notice is one to be pleased with if it came as a 

 chance out of thousands; its rich, golden color, large size, fine form, melting 

 flesh and sweet, luscious flavor, place it among the best dessert plums. 

 In the mind of the writer and of those who have assisted in describing 

 the varieties for The Plums of New York, it is unsurpassed in qtiality by 

 any other plum. The tree-characters, however, do not correspond in 

 desirability with those of the fruits. The trees, while of medium size and 

 seemingly as vigorous and healthy as any, are unproductive. In none of 

 the several years they have been fruiting at this Station have they borne 

 a large crop. If elsewhere this defect does not show, the variety becomes 

 at once one of great value. The fruits of Pearl are said to cure into deli- 

 cious pnuies — ^to be readily believed by one who has eaten the fresh fruits. 

 This variety ought to be very generally tried by commercial plum-growers 

 and is recommended to aU who grow fruit for pleasure. 



Pearl is a recent addition to the list of pliims and though its history 

 is well known its parentage is in doubt. In 1898, Luther Btirbank intro- 

 duced the variety as a new prune grown from the seed of the well-known 

 Agen. The male parent is not known but from the fruit and tree, one at 

 once surmises that it was some variety of the Reine Claude group, its 

 characters being so like those of the plum named that no one could suspect 

 that it came from the seed of a plum so far removed from the Reine Claude 

 as the Agen. 



Tree of medium size, vigorous, vasiform, dense-topped, hardy, unproductive; 

 branches ash-gray, with numerous, small, raised lenticels; branchlets twiggy, thick, 

 long, with long internodes, greenish-red changing to brownish-red, very pubescent 

 early in the season becoming less so at maturity, with numerous, small, raised lenti- 

 cels; leaf -buds large, above medium in length, conical, appressed; leaf -scars prominent. 



Leaves broadly oval, one and seven-eighths inches wide, three and one-half inches 

 long, thick, leathery; upper surface dark green, rugose, covered with fine hairs, with 

 a grooved midrib; lower surface pale green, pubescent; apex abruptly pointed, base 

 abrupt, margin serrate or crenate, with small, black glands; petiole seven-eighths inch 

 long, thick, pubescent, tinged red, glandless or with from one to three small, globose, 

 brownish glands on the stalk. 



Blooming season intermediate in time and length; flowers appearing after the 

 leaves, showy on account of their size, averaging one and five-eighths inches across, 

 white, with a tinge of yellow at the apex of the petals; borne on lateral spurs and buds, 

 usually singly; pedicels one-half inch long, thick, strongly pubescent, greenish; calyx- 



