THE PLUM. 



527 



their fruit is worth. They are also difficult to 

 gather, protect, or prune, and never produce in 

 the same proportion so much fruit as well-regu- 

 lated dwarf standards do. In the latter case 

 the fruit can be hand-gathered, they can be 

 readily protected by nets, or grown under a wire 

 covering, as recommended for cherries; and 

 pruning, &c, can be accomplished while the 

 operator stands upon the ground. It is not 

 size of tree but productive habit that ought to 

 be aimed at in fruit-tree culture. Indeed, the 

 larger such trees become, the less fruit they 

 will produce, compared with their size, and the 

 space of valuable ground they cover; nor is the 

 fruit itself nearly so good — as is clearly exem- 

 plified in the plum. 



East and west aspected walls are suitable for 

 the main crops, although a tree or two of some 

 of the earliest sorts should be placed on a south 

 wall, and one or two of the hardier kinds even 

 on a north one, with a view, in both cases, 

 of lengthening out the season to a greater ex- 

 tent. 



The Green gage, one of the finest and most 

 useful of all plums, seems to be exceedingly 

 capricious in regard to situation. It is an ex- 

 cellent dwarf standard or even orchard fruit in 

 the south, requiring, however, a wall in the 

 most of the north of England and Scotland, 

 and indeed in many places a southern aspect. 

 As an exception to this rule, we may observe 

 that there still exists the remains of an old 

 orchard of standard trees of this sort, of great 

 age, in the park of the Earl of Traquair, at 

 Traquair House, in the upper parts of Peebles- 

 shire, which produces abundance of fruit, and 

 that of as good quality as is to be in general 

 seen in the neighbourhood of London. The plum 

 requires the same space to spread on the wall 

 as the peach and apricot, already mentioned, 

 when on its ordinary stock, and properly root- 

 pruned — much less, however, when on the sloe 

 or Mirabelle. As the leaves of the plum tribe 

 vary greatly in size — say from the Blue impera- 

 trice to the Washington, nearly the two ex- 

 tremes — allowance should be made for this in 

 the distance the branches are placed apart in 

 training. A very general mistake has been 

 fallen into in planting fruit trees, more es- 

 pecially those planted against walls : insuffi- 

 cient room has been afforded them. This is 

 easily accounted for — all men are anxious to 

 make as much of their walls as they can, and 

 hence crowding them with trees is of very fre- 

 quent occurrence. Trees occupy little space 

 when first planted, and if placed at their proper 

 distances, the walls look for a long time naked. 

 It were better, therefore, to plant intermediate 

 trees of sorts that would come into bearing 

 early, were it even gooseberries, currants, and 

 suchlike, than to set the permanent trees so 

 close together, that when they come to their 

 full size the branches of the one run into those 

 of the other, and hence cause great confusion, 

 ending in shortening the terminal shoots, and 

 in many cases causing the trees to throw out 

 innumerable masses of useless spray, and dis- 

 turbing the natural organisation of fruitful 

 buds. But there is, on the other hand, even a 



greater error committed when they are planted 

 at too great a distance apart, and encouraged to 

 cover too great an area of wall surface ; for 

 when so encouraged and treated, as too fre- 

 quently is the case, they produce fruit only at 

 and near the extremity of the branches, while 

 the centre and greater part of the tree is per- 

 fectly barren. By repeated transplanting, and 

 by judicious root-pruning, the plum, even upon 

 its strongest stocks, may be kept within very 

 moderate bounds, and continued long in health 

 and productiveness. Now, instead of planting 

 plums at 20 or 24 feet distance apart on the 

 walls, half that distance will be found sufficient 

 under ordinary circumstances, thereby affording 

 space for a greater variety. There are, how- 

 ever, soils and situations so favourably circum- 

 stanced that the plum really requires from 18 

 to 20 feet distance when trained as a wall tree, 

 as in the Royal Gardens at Frogmore and some 

 others ; but these are the exceptions, not the 

 rule. In general, smaller trees will be found 

 the most profitable. A good deal, however, in 

 this, depends on the height of the walls and 

 mode of training. On walls under 8 or 9 feet 

 in height, with horizontal training, 16' or 18 

 feet will be a good distance in ordinary cases ; 

 and for walls of greater height, and the trees 

 fan-trained, from 12 to 15 feet will be sufficient, 

 provided the trees are to be root-pruned, and 

 triennially transplanted. The autumn is a good 

 season for taking up such plum trees as are 

 making too much wood, and showing too few 

 fruit-buds. The plum lifts easily, or rather 

 safely, and lifting and replanting is one of the 

 very best means of lessening over-luxuriance, 

 and inducing greater fertility. 



Pruning and training.— The majority of the 

 older horticultural authorities recommend train- 

 ing the plum in the horizontal manner ; modern 

 authorities recommend the fan or more natural 

 form. Amongst plums there is a greater dif- 

 ference in respect to habit than even in the 

 case of cherries. The Imperatrice and Washing- 

 ton, or the Magnum bonum, may be taken as 

 the extremes in regard to habit. In the latter 

 cases some excuse may be found for horizontal 

 training, as it has a considerable effect in modi- 

 fying the luxuriance of growth ; while in the 

 former, which is a weak grower, a more ver- 

 tical direction given to the branches would in- 

 duce greater strength in the tree. Miller 

 recommended horizontal training to modify the 

 growth, and was adverse to shortening the 

 branches, because the more these trees are 

 pruned, the more they grow to wood. Modern 

 practitioners have, by operating on the roots, 

 planting in shallow borders, and other manipula- 

 tions, rendered both horizontal training and se- 

 vere branch-pruning almost unnecessary. Among 

 these, Mr Rivers holds a prominent position. 

 He recommends summer-pinching the young 

 wood, annual root-pruning, and surface-dress- 

 ing, in preference to any other mode of culture. 

 He is also experimenting on the use of the sloe 

 as a stock to work them on, with a view to check 

 excessive growth. The plum is a very hardy 

 tree, and well fitted for training as an espalier, 

 and as such most sorts ripen their fruit in ordi- 



