£a/7-ry h OJA 
VOL XLVIII NO. 2042 NEW YORK, MARCH 16, 1889, P SS E Y °S 8 ' 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1&89, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.J 
Porno Logical. 
THE WAYLAND PLUM. 
UR friend, T. V. Munson, recently sent 
us a photograph from which our en¬ 
graving, Fig. 61, was made. Mr. Munson 
writes as follows regarding this plum : 
“ The Wayland plum originated with Prof. 
H. B. Wayland, Cadiz, Ky., many years ago. 
It was sent by him to J. S. Downer & Sons, of 
Todd Co., Ky. who named and disseminated 
it. In Southwestern Missouri, here in Morth- 
ern Texas, and near Austin, in Central Texas, 
it has made a remarkable record for vigor, 
productiveness, beauty and excellent quality 
as a late plum, free from floury by the curcu- 
lio and rot. It ripens about with the Heath 
Cling peach, and possesses the characteris¬ 
tics, in a large degree, of the Prunus umbel- 
lata, as do the Golden Beauty and Kanawha 
plums, which are equally successful in the 
South. The Wayland and Golden Beauty 
begin ripening together; but the former con¬ 
tinues longest, and stays on the tree more 
tenaciously when ripe. The Golden Beauty 
was found wild on the Colorado river in 
Western Texas during the late war. Last 
summer I found a clump of bushes of a char¬ 
acter similar to that of the Wayland plum, 
full of similar fruit, on the Little Wichita 
river in Clay Co., Texas. I consider them as 
belonging to the Prunus umbellata species, 
and not to the Chickasaw, as some do. 
We have in the South another species of 
large-growing, late plums, which is, by some 
botanists, classed as Prunus Americana; by 
others as Prunus umbellata; but they agree 
in description with neither. They are com¬ 
monly called ‘ Hog plums.’ A dwarf, earlier- 
ripening plum (Prunus pygtna), is also called 
‘Hog plum.’ There is as yet considerable 
confusion about our native species of Prunus 
among botanists. They readily hybridize 
with each other, producing fertile progeny, 
and occasionally mey cross with the peach, 
producing infertile progeny, so far as known. 
I have produced a number of such hybrids 
myself, and all are ‘ mules.’ A large and 
promising field is open to the experimenter 
among native and foreign plums; for exam¬ 
ple, in handling the Wayland and Kelsey; 
Lone Star or Marianna, and the Ogon, VV ild 
Goose and Botan, or Hattankin, or Satsuma, 
or Forest Garden and Prunus oimonii. Who 
will work it ? It is rich in promise for the 
South and West.” The engraving below is an 
exact photographic portrait of the Wayland 
plum, and is therefore true to nature. 
A FRUIT TALK. 
At our house the other day, among other 
guests, was the well known horticulturist, Mr. 
Charles Gibbs, of Abbottsford, Province of 
Quebec, Canada, and I was surprised to find 
that his Duchess grape and other varieties 
were, as he said, nearly a week behind ours in 
ripening qualities. We could not save for our 
table in late November a bunch of the Con¬ 
cord or Niagara, and all early sorts had sep¬ 
arated from the stems. But Salem (red) and 
Wilder (black) with the big black grape Her¬ 
bert and the red Agawam, held very well to 
the stems. All the guests appreciated the 
Duchess, and the fruit has not lost anything 
in flavor or appearance. I am sorry we have 
not enough yet to put them upon the Christ¬ 
mas market, but we are ot those who believe 
in using at home the best we can produce, 
and so the Duchess is our family grape, and it 
takes a good many to go around. 
Among pears the Flemish Beauty was fair 
to look at, but the flesh was soft and decayed 
at the heart. So the best pear we found for 
our table that day was a russet, firm-fleshed 
variety called Mount Vernon. It certainly is 
a pleasant-flavored pear, and the tree bears 
every year. As we talked of fruit, we dis¬ 
cussed some of the grievances to which grow¬ 
ers are subject. “Why,” exclaimed one, after 
looking over the markets, “the retailer gets 
more for weighing the grapes than we do for 
growing them;” and all felt the unfairness of 
the wide margin between grower and con¬ 
sumer. My husband related a disagreeable 
incident in his experience, which was that 
while going down on the steamer early this 
season, he saw a number of barrels bearing 
his full brand, and on inquiry found they 
were full of wild inferior fruit, all branded as 
our “Choice Fameuse.” Someone had bought 
up the empty barrels and willfully neglected 
to scrape off the brand. This was certain to 
mislead buyers, as the name is well known on 
the market, and doubtless this trick is often 
practiced. But what can one do about it ? 
Prov. Quebec, Canada. annie l. jack. 
Strawberries. —I fruit in limited quantity 
some SO varieties of strawberries, if I were 
to grow but one variety for my own use , it 
would be Prince of Berries. If limited to four 
varieties, I would include Crawford, Belmont 
and Ontario. These are all large kinds that 
require as rich soil and high cultivation as 
onion?, and plenty of room for each plant. 
Last season Jessie, Jewell and Mammoth were 
complete failures in the same plot and under 
the same conditions in which Crawford, Bel¬ 
mont and Ontario succeeded. 
Litchfield Co., Conn, reuben c. hart. 
THE WAYLAND PLUM. From Nature. Fig. 61. 
