THE PLUM. 
353 
done before mid-summer, to prevent the flow of gum. Old trees 
that have become barren, may be renovated by heading them 
in pretty severely, covering the wounds with our solution of 
gum shellac, and giving them a good top dressing at the roots. 
Soil. The plum will grow vigorously in almost every part 
of this country, but it only bears its finest and most abundant 
crops in heavy loams, or in soils in which there is a considerable 
mixture of clay. In sandy soils, the tree blossoms and sets 
plentiful crops, but they are rarely perfected, falling a prey to 
the curculio, an insect that harbours in the soil, and seems to find 
it difficult to penetrate or live in one of a heavy texture, while 
a warm, light, sandy soil, is exceedingly favourable to its propaga- 
tion. It is also undoubtedly true, that a heavy soil is naturally 
the most favourable one. The surprising facility with which 
superior new varieties are raised merely by ordinary reproduc- 
tion from seed, in certain parts of the valley ol the Hudson, as 
at Hudson, or near Albany, where the soil is quite clayey, and 
also the delicious flavour and great productiveness and health of 
the plum tree there almost without any care, while in adjacent 
districts of rich sandy land it is a very uncertain bearer, are very 
convincing proofs of the great importance of clayey soil for this 
fruit. 
Where the whole soil of a place is light and sandy, we would 
recommend the employment of pure yellow loam or yellow clay, 
in the p’ace of manure, when preparing the border or spaces for 
planting the plum. Very heavy clay, burned slowly by mixing 
it in large heaps with brush or faggots, is at once an admirable 
manure and alterative for such soils. Swamp muck is also 
one of the best substances, and especially that from salt water 
marshes. 
Common salt we have found one of the best fertilizers for the 
plum tree. It not only greatly promotes its health and luxuri- 
ance, but from the dislike which most insects have to this sub- 
stance, it drives away or destroys most of those to which the 
plum is liable. The most successful plum grower in our neigh- 
bourhood, applies, with the best results, half a peck of coarse salt 
to the surface of the ground under each bearing tree, annually, 
about the first of April. 
Insects and diseases. There are but two drawbacks to the 
cultivation of the plum in the United States, but they are in 
some districts so great as almost to destroy the value of this tree. 
These are the curculio , and the knots. 
The curculio, or plum-weevil, ( Rhynchcenus Nenuphar ,) is 
the uncompromising foe of all smooth stone fruits. The culti- 
vator of the Plum, the Nectarine, and the Apricot, in many 
parts of the country, after a flattering profusion of snowy blos- 
soms and an abundant promise in the thickly set young crops 
of fruit, has the frequent mortification of seeing nearly all, or 
