January, 1910 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



13 



The Japanese Persimmon 



By E. P. Powell 



HE value of our native persimmon is just 

 being discovered. One variety, the Jose- 

 phine, was found by Judge Miller, of 

 Missouri, and is now being propagated by 

 Mr. Munson, of Dennison, Texas. I am 

 growing it successfully at Clinton, New 

 York, where it is entirely hardy; and at 

 Sorrento, Fla., where the native persimmon is in its glory. 

 I found hundreds of young trees starting up everywhere in 

 the pine woods. I think that, only for the annual burning 

 over of the State, the persimmon would put up a good fight 

 against any other sort of tree in central Florida. Un- 

 fortunately, a large proportion of 

 these seedlings do not give fruit, 

 and must be grafted. In Florida 

 we have grafted them with the 

 Japanese sorts, and it is a great 

 success. We understand that these 

 new sorts from Japan are in need 

 of pollen from our native trees, at 

 least this is asserted by those who 

 have tried them in orchards. I 

 have seen no lack of pollination in 

 my trees. 



The native sorts are capable of 

 undoubted development, and I do 

 not see why this should not be- 

 come a very remarkable fruit in 

 the extreme North. The tree cer- 

 tainly is hardy, and the wood is 

 the American ebony — hard and of 

 decided value in cabinet work. 

 But at Clinton I have never known 

 a single failure of the fruit. Only 

 on one occasion the season was too 

 dry to give us perfected fruits. A 

 tree when in full bearing loses its 

 leaves before the first of Novem- 

 ber, and then the limbs are sim- 

 ply weighed down with golden 

 balls. I secured scions of half a 

 dozen of the best sorts I could find 

 in Virginia, Indiana and Missouri. 

 The Josephine was the best, al- 

 though others were less seedy and 

 were earlier. It now stands as a 

 problem for American horticul- 

 ture to give us varieties nearly or 

 quite seedless and as large as the 

 Japanese sorts. I feel sure that 

 this will come about. I have one 

 seedling bearing at six feet high, 

 and giving me a fruit fully equal 

 to Josephine, possibly a little later. 

 1 he Japanese must have de- 

 veloped their magnificent varieties 

 from something very similar to 

 ours. The shape has been changed 

 somewhat, so that we have them 

 like a tomato, and others like an 

 acorn, only two to three or even 

 four inches in diameter. Some of 

 the varieties bear on trees that 

 might as well be called bushes. 



Copper tray covered with the stopping-off composr 

 tion ready for baking 



8 — Oven in which the damascening is done 



9 — Copper dish inlaid and onlaid with zinc 



while other varieties hang down from very shapely trees, 

 looking much like a magnolia, thirty to forty feet high. The 

 food value of these persimmons is very great, and I think I 

 could dine on two or three of the Triumph sorts and a half- 

 dozen crackers with comfort. The most convenient way 

 for eating them is with a teaspoon, in some cases the skin 

 being quite tough, but in others easily removable and hardly 

 noticeable. The tree takes very kindly to our sandy soil in 

 the South, but just as kindly to our clay at the North. The 

 shipping quality varies with different varieties; some of 

 them packing and carrying about as well as pears. They 

 differ also in astringency. Some of them are uneatable un- 

 til quite ripe, when they lose all 

 trace of astringency; but other 

 sorts are eatable before entire 

 ripeness. This astringent quahty 

 of the persimmon can therefore be 

 eliminated, by propagating by se- 

 lection. Taking seedlings from the 

 least astringent, we could in a few 

 generations entirely abolish this 

 peculiarity. I presume that na- 

 ture left it in the persimmon in or- 

 der to protect it from animals and 

 birds. They certainly would not 

 taste twice of a green persimmon 

 of the astringent sort. Our natives 

 have the same quality in excess; it 

 can be and must be bred out. 



The persimmon is predestined 

 to become a great market fruit in 

 America, and all the Japanese 

 product that we can send North 

 from Florida and other Southern 

 States is immediately caught up at 

 high prices. It has not been in the 

 country very long, and our Amer- 

 ican people have got to become fa- 

 miliar with it. So here we have 

 our problem before us, in two 

 forms; first to improve our native 

 persimmon, and make it as good 

 as the Japanese; secondly to select 

 the Japanese sorts for hardiness, 

 until we can get those that will 

 stand the climate of New York 

 and Minnesota. The tree takes 

 good care of itself, although it is 

 brittle. It would make a good 

 filler, where it is hardy to stand 

 between rows of apple trees. I do 

 not know that the Japanese sorts 

 are now growing anywhere north 

 of Georgia — possibly in Kentucky 

 and Tennessee and Virginia. Rev. 

 Mr. Loomis, of Yokohama, who 

 was one of the first to introduce 

 Japanese sorts, was, at last notice, 

 trying to find Korean sorts that 

 would endure a climate not unfa- 

 miliar with zero. 



There is a curious similaritv be- 

 tween the pawpaw and persimmon, 

 not only in the fruit but in the tree. 



