e plum belongs to this type, as also does the Terry plum. The
Terry plum we want to keep a while longer, not because it is a mortgage
lifter for the growers but because of the extraordinarily large size of
its fruit, as well as for its fine quality.

There are many injurious insects and fungous diseases that tend to make
life a burden to the man who tries to grow plums in a commercial way.
Among the insects are the plum curculio and the plum tree borer, better
known as the peach tree borer. The curculio sometimes destroys all of
the fruit on the tree, and the borer very often will destroy the whole
tree of any variety.

Among the fungous diseases are the shot hole fungus and the plum pocket
fungus, but the worst of all is that terribly destructive disease of the
plum known as the brown rot. This brown rot fungus sometimes destroys
the whole crop of certain varieties, besides injuring the trees
sometimes as well. This one disease has done more to make plum growing
unpopular than all other causes combined. Give us a cheap and efficient
remedy, one that will destroy the rot fungus and not do injury to the
foliage, buds or tree, and a long stride will have been made towards
making plum growing popular as well as profitable.

_Japanese hybrid plums._--Just now the Japanese hybrid varieties are
attracting considerable attention. One prominent Minnetonka fruit grower
said this to me about them:

"Mr. Cook, what is the use of making all of this fuss about these new
plums? Plums are only used for the purposes of making jelly anyway, and
we can usually get a dollar a bushel for our plums, and they would not
pay any more than that, no matter how large and fine they are."

This brought me up with a jerk, and I have concluded that no matter how
advanced a place in horticulture these new hybrid plums may eventually
take, that there will always be a place for our native varieties, even
if only for the purpose of making jelly.

It seems to the writer that in view of the fact that after many years'
attempt to improve our native plum through the process of seed
selection--and we have made no material advancement in that line--that
the varieties of plums that are on the way must almost of necessity be
the product of the Americana and some of the foreign varieties of plums.

Mr. Theo. Williams, of Nebraska, a few years ago originated a great many
varieties of these hybrid plums. He claimed to have upward of 5,000 of
them growing a