66 
Have you tried Prunus mume and P. trlflora 
as stocks for plums and P. lannesiana for cher- 
ries? These three might "be gotten in quantities 
from Japan, when special requests are made for 
them. V/e surely ought to try to iaave col- 
lections of various species of Prunus, itoygdalus 
and Gerasus at our station^, so that we could 
experiment in a small way on these stock problems. 
Mr. Bisset answered this letter on August 2, I917, as follows: 
As to stocks for plums and cherries, you 
ask for what sections of the United States do 
we want them. V/e want them for all sections where 
it is possible to grov/ such things. For instance, 
we need better stock than we now have in any of 
our fruit-growing sections and and we would like 
to get a good stock for the plum in Florida. As 
for the cherry - you know cherries do not do 
well south of the northern Georgia line and, 
while v;e have no report, we are in hopes that the 
Tang si cherry - p s eudo c er asu s - v/ill extend the 
clierry line a little further south. We are ad- 
vised by Mr. Harry Stabler, of Yuba City, Calif., 
that the wild forms of serrulat a have proven a 
very good stock for the cherry in the vicinity 
of Yuba City and Marysville; proving in fact to 
be a better stock than the fonns they have been 
using heretofore. One thing vie are not sure of, 
however, v;hich is, how long-lived this stock will 
be, hence almost any wild cherry that you run 
across will be of great interest to us and to 
fruit-growers in general. Again, I am not sure 
that you know that the cherries do very poorly 
in Minnesota and others of our Middle North States, 
so that a hardier cherry would be extremely valuable 
for our colder states 
No, we have not tried personally the Prunus 
mume or P. tri fp liata for the pliims, nor P. lannesi - 
ana for the cherry. "f^Q have orders out for 100 
pounds of seed of Prunus niume, however, and this 
will give us a number of stocks for making the 
test. Of the other two we shall order some seed 
and see what v/e can do with them. 
You are quite right in saying that we should 
have a collection of the various species of Prunus, 
Amygdalus and Cerasus at. our stations. Vv'e are 
getting together quite an interesting collection 
of these plants at our Chico and Yarrov/ stations, 
and hope that we shall secure many more interesting 
forms to add to these collections. 
Mr. Wight, of Prof. Corbett's office, is also 
December 31, 1917. 
