Established trees in full health need no aid in an ordinary season if they carry no crop. Damsons should be fed as well as plums.
must be carried out severely if the crop is thick. In a good plum season, only very fine and first-rate fruits fetch a good price, and these can only be obtained by thinning the fruit and feeding the trees. An annual crop (if frost does not interfere) may then be expected. Half the crop in some years should be taken off long before the fruit is ripe. The jam-makers utilise green and half-ripe plums.
These are dessert plums, some of the highest excellence, but they usually require a wall or the best soil and situation. The demand for them is very great. Preserved with proper care, they last until plums come again, and often fetch a higher price than the red or dark plums.
1. July Greengage (see before) early in August.
2. Dennistoun's Superb (see before) mid-August.
3. Early Transparent (see before) end of August.
4. Reine Claude Comte d'Althann, briefly Comte d'Althann, a comparatively new plum from Bohemia. First-class certificate R.H.S. "Medium to large, greyish green, deeply flushed and dotted with red, covered with a beautiful white bloom, very heavy crop, habit bushy, compact, vigorous, remarkably good dessert plum, succeeding equally well as a wall tree, bush, or standard, remarkably prolific." R.H.S., R. August 22.
6. If more are wanted M'Laughlin's Gage is "rather large, pale yellow, flushed with red, a good cropper, habit erect, compact, vigorous, one of the finest dessert plums." R. August 17.
7. Guthrie's Late Green, "very good cropper, habit bushy, compact, vigorous, a most delicious dessert plum." R. August 30.
Nos. 2, 5 and 6 are splendid specimens of American plums, No. 7 is Scotch, named after the late Mr Guthrie of Dundee.
The following are well known but not so good in some respects: Bryanston Gage, Oullin's Golden Gage, Golden Transparent. Coe's Golden Drop has been described. Angelina Burdett is sometimes classed with the gages. It is "dark red, shaded with purple, a good cropper, habit bushy and compact, a delicious dessert variety that hangs well in the trees for some time after it is ripe." R. August 22.
If a planter prefers to grow gages, he must protect his trees from bullfinches and other birds. The former often carry off the buds in winter, and ruin all hopes of a crop. Such a plantation near a wood would usually be a failure. If the trees are washed in early winter with No. II. mixture, the buds will have some protection. Lime should be thrown over the branches on a damp day. The gun in many cases must be at work from dawn to dusk. The gardener must learn to distinguish between friend and foe. Mr Lea's list in "Small Farms in the Midlands" is as follows: Early Prolific, Victoria, Black Diamond ("the wood is remarkably tough"), Pond's Seedling ("tolerably tough"), Pershore Egg Plum, _i.e._ Gisborne ("hardiest of all plums, surest cropper, comes early into bearing, the wood tough, and though the price is low, pays well"). He also mentions Prince Englebert and Jemmy Moore ("alias Cox's Emperor, alias Denbigh"), but wisely adds, these come in about the same time as Victoria, when there is a glut. Early or late varieties usually sell best. A new variety, Bittern, raised (as so many varieties have been) at Sawbridgeworth, by the late Francis Rivers, seems well worth trying: "Fruit rather large, deep purple, very heavy crop, habit bushy, compact, vigorous, excellent early free-bearing variety. R. August 2."