never plant another plum on its own roots. It may be all right for awhile, but it will cost you every dollar of profit to cut out the sprouts. I have had trees on Marianna for the last ten or twelve years and have seen no suckers start. I mulch. I don't cultivate. MR. DUCKWORTH: The great crop in southern Van Buren county was two varieties of Damson, two varieties of Wild Goose and another plum that looks like it but ripens later, called the Late Wild Goose, and the Green Gage. There is another plum which is very successful there which the people call the German

Prune.

C. L. WATROUS: That is a well known variety of the Domestica.

C. G. BLODGETT: I was going to keep still because I know that most of our members must use the natives, north of this latitude anyway. In the southeastern counties of Iowa these European plums and some of the Japans are the plums. We can do something with them.

R. SHERBURNE: In my opinion it appears to be a mistake not to plant some Domesticas.

GEO. W. EDEN: The Domesticas in our part of the country seem to do better than the natives as a whole. We have several kinds of these Domesticas and we get a crop just about as often, or more often, than we do of the natives, and we can do some. thing with them when we get a crop.

R. SHERBURNE: I have a seedling of the Lombard that I believe had more plums than leaves. Those on native roots I noticed did'nt ripen a plum, while those on their own roots had a few plums that rotted. It has been my experience that plums are better picked early. I would pick the De Soto before it turns. Those that have fully ripened are bitter, while if picked before fully ripe they are all right. The plum in my opinion requires different treatment from other fruit. As the skin matures the flavor is different. You would not recognize the same fruit in ten days' difference of picking.

C. G. PATTEN: About cherries-the Montmorency. There is considerable contention in reference to it. Which is the best Montmorency?

C. L. WATROUs: It is a small, round tree with short, stubby branches-low down. The Montmorency ordinary grows very much larger, while the Early and Late Richmond grow scraggly. The Montmorency grows fewer branches and larger and more. upright. It can be told at sight just because of its round top,

Trees planted by Mr. Fultz in spring of 1885, at one year old. Photographs taken December, 1900, to show habit of these two sorts.

LESSON

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PLUMS, PEACHES AND CHERRIES.

303

which looks upward while Richmond looks downward. The cherry is red, and very much like Early Richmond, but it begins to be red only when the Richmonds are gone.

WM. LANGHAM: What is the difference between the two kinds? C. L. WATROUS: I could not state in words what the difference is, but if you get Montmorency Ordinary you don't need to know anything about the other.

E. TATUM: This same subject was argued at Chicago at a nurseryman's convention. There seemed to be about four dozen classes of Montmorencies, large and ordinary. The one Captain Watrous described was generally considered to be Large Montmorency there.

R. SHERBURNE: Be good to your young seedlings, mulch carefully and set deep when you transplant. Be careful of the root. system until they get down and become well established.

A MEMBER: What time should seeds be planted to get the best results?

R. SherburnE: As soon as the fruit is used. Plant in wet sand. If season requires mulch, and transplant in the spring. How far apart would you plant plums?

F. O. HARRINGTON: Ten by twenty feet.

GEO. W. EDEN:

C. L. WATROUS:

between.

Ten by sixteen feet.

Fourteen by twenty feet, and put small fruits

R. SHERBURNE: The distance apart depends upon the kinds, whether fast or slow growing. Peaches, distance apart?

W. A. DUCKWORTH: Eight by twenty feet.

H. H. MichenER: It depends upon the location. Some advocate a theory of about eight by ten feet apart in the row and give rows plenty of air drainage between.

R. SHERBURNE: Peaches are more susceptible to sunshine than any other fruit. Not less than ten by sixteen feet; ten by twenty is better. Rows running north and south. Cherries, best varieties?

H. HARRINGTON: Late Montmorency is my first choice. Four-fifths of the nurserymen in Chicago said Late Montmorency was the one to plant.

A MEMBER: What about the Silver Thorne cherry?

W. S. FULTZ: It stands in about the same grade as the Late Richmond. About every third or fourth year you get a good crop; then you don't get anything for three or four years. Quality about as good as Late Richmond.

CHAS. E. DEWEL: I want to tell you about a freak. It came in a lot of English Morillos. It is the color of an English Morillo, but not quite as large. I never noticed any difference at all until it fruited this year. It is very early and was all gone when the Early Richmonds were ripe. There is one peculiarity about the cherries-possibly one-tenth this year were double, and double ones were perfect cherries.

R. SHERBURNE: Distance apart for planting cherries?

A. BRANSON: About twelve feet one way and twenty feet the other.

R. SHERBURNE: Those that I have planted are ten by twenty and ten by sixteen. I can cultivate better if the rows are far apart.

AFTERNOON SESSION-SECOND DAY.

PRESENT AND FUTURE OF HORTICULTURE IN THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

BY C. G. PATTEN, CHARLES CITY.

Members of the Eastern Horticultural Society, did you ever consider that we are nearly in the center of a territory about seven hundred miles square. in the upper Mississippi Valley, that comprises the richest agricultural area of like extent on the American Continent. An area traversed by two immense rivers, bordering upon great lakes, with a gently undulating surface enriched by vegetable accumulations for ages, before civilized man came upon it, and that that civilization is the highest and best that he has ever beheld. With a climate no where excelled for the uniform production of all the grains and grasses that are essential to the highest agriculture and horticulture, and the highest civilization. A climate that has developed some of the types of native fruits. from the strawberry, dewberry, raspberry, blackberry and cranberry, up to the plum and apple. The last two, the largest in variety, and when size and quality are considered, are, I believe, equal to if not superior to any native fruits that have ever been discovered.

Within and just outside of the borders of Iowa more native plums of excellence have been discovered than in all the United States besides, and now that we have began to look for them we discover that the native wild apple has, in some cases, reached almost the size of our smaller cultivated sorts. With such beginnings, and such environing climatic conditions, who shall predict that out of these two species of fruits there shall not come some of the most valuable contributions to our future pomology. With our plums we have already made such progress that it is not difficult to forsee that in the short space of twenty-five years they will vie in quality and in almost every other desired characteristic with the most favored varieties of other species. And I believe that a combination of the American type combined