122 
AMERICAN POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
personal pride in his trade and in his success in awakening a taste for the 
best things. This method ought to be attractive to the grower of apples. 
The apple is the king of Northern fruits., and in a wide range of country 
should take precedence over all other fruits in its usefulness. It is a shame 
to us all, who are devotees of horticulture, that in this realm, where the 
apple should be at its best, and when at its best has no peer, foreigners 
should come in with inferior fruits and monopolize the trade. In these re- 
cent years this has come to be true to an alarming extent. The orange and 
banana have taken the place of the apple because only poor apples were to be 
found. There is no question which shall have precedence in the northern 
markets if the best apples are there to be bought; but as between the Ben 
Davis and a banana, the Baldwin and an orange, the banana and the orange 
get to the front. But if these southern fruits had always to compete with 
apples of the quality of the Swaar and the Jonathan and the Mother and the 
Oakland, they would surely take the second place. 
If I were to plant an apple orchard today, after choosing my location with 
regard to climate, and giving due consideration to soil and hardiness of tree, 
I would make everything else subservient to the taste. I would grow varie- 
ties that would tickle the ‘most sensitive palates, and I would expend my best 
thought and management in cultivating sensitiveness of taste and awaken- 
ing a desire for the most superb quality. My immediate purpose would be the 
•opening to their depths of the fattest pocket books, but I would cherish in my 
heart the conviction that when my business should reach the historical stage 
it would be to me a source of satisfaction and commendable pride. 
AMERICAN PLUMS. FOR AMERICA. 
BY PROFESSOR E. S. GOFF, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON, 
WISCONSIN. 
It would be folly to claim, for the sake of argument, that the introduced 
plums have proved a failure in the United States. Our fruit markets during 
the plum season would belie such a proposition. The European plum, with 
proper culture, succeeds over a very considerable part of our country, and 
its choicer varieties are among the most delicious of fruits. The more re- 
cently introduced Japanese plums have doubtless gained ground faster in our 
culture and in our markets than any other exotic fruit that has been brought 
to our country. The remarkable vigor and prolificacy of this species will 
insure its permanence on our soil, and while the average quality of its fruit 
is very low, the excellence of a few of its varieties leaves no reason to doubt 
that it will yet furnish plums as delicious as the choicest European sorts. 
But both the European and Japanese plums have inherent defects that must 
forever prevent either of them from becoming the national. plum of North 
America. The flower buds of neither are reliable to endure the winters of the 
Mississippi Valley much north of Mason and Dixon’s line. The European 
plum is so susceptible to the curculio that its fruit can be secured only at the 
price, of interminable warfare against this insect. The Japanese plums 
bloom so early in spring that they are comparatively unsafe, even in many 
localities where their flower buds have passed the winter. The European 
plum has been introduced nearly three hundred years, yet it has not become a 
