If you have a deep rather light soil which drains well and which there is, therefore, no danger of water standing during the rainy season, the almond root is perfectly satisfactory for the prune. It is a strong-growing root and keeps pace with the top growth well. The prune, in fact, is more apt to overgrow the myrobalan than the almond, and the myrobalan will not do well on light soils likely to dry out as the almond will.
Re-grafting Silver Prunes.
I have five acres of Silver prunes which produce very little fruit. The trees are strong and healthy. French prune trees adjoining bear regularly and heavily. Can I graft French prunes on the Silver trees? Will Silver prune trees take other grafts, such as apricots or apples?
The Silver prune is often unsatisfactory for reason of shy bearing. It is perfectly feasible to graft over the tree to the French prune and this has been done for years by different growers. Apricots will usually take on the plum stock, but are apt to over-grow it or else be dwarfed themselves, but the apricot is often worked upon a plum stock. Apples have no grafting affinity whatever for the plum.
French or Italian.
In the prune-growing district around Salem, Oregon, Italian prunes are grown exclusively for drying purposes. French prunes were considered worthless. Here in Sutter county, California, a great many French prunes are grown and we are advised to plant them, but would rather plant the Italian prune. Which would you advise us to set out in this part of the State?
The Italian or Fellenberg prune was grown to some extent in California 40 years and abandoned; it was not so sure in bearing as the French, and it was not the type of prune which we had ambition to excel with. The prune which we grow as the French is the true prune or plum of Agen. We should plant it and let the Oregon people have the Italian.
Myrobalan Seedlings.
I am sending two small plums which I am told are Myrobalan plum. I desire to grow seedlings on which later to bud and graft French prunes. If these are Myrobalan plums, will trees from them be as good as trees from pits that were imported?
The fruits are Myrobalan plums, and their seedlings would be suitable for the French prune, providing the trees which bear them are strong, thrifty growing trees. There is great variation in the colors of the Myrobalan seedlings, from light yellow to dark red, and it is the satisfactory growth of the tree rather than the character of the fruit which one has to bear in mind when growing seedlings from selected trees instead of depending so largely on imported seedlings.