QUACKENBOSS
Prunus domestica
1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 393. 1857. 2. Cultivator 6:269 fig. 1858. 3. Thomas Am. Fruit Cult. 345. 1867. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 941. 1869. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 24. 1871. 6. Mas. Pom. Gen. 2:151, fig. 76. 1873. 7. Barry Fr. Garden 415. 1883. 8. Mich. Sta. Bul. 103:34, fig. 6. 1894. 9. Ont. Fr. Exp. Sta. Rpt. 52. 1895. 10. Cornell Sta. Bul. 131:191, fig. 40 II. 1897. 11. Waugh Plum Cult. 119. 1901. 12. Va. Sta. Bul. 134:44. 1902.
Quackenbos 9, 12.
Though not a leading variety, Quackenboss is a prominent one in the list of commercial sorts for New York. Its fruits possess to a high degree the characters which make a good market plum; they are of large size, averaging nearly an inch and a half in diameter; round-oval, a better shape for the markets than the prune shapes; very prepossessing in color—a handsome, dark purple with heavy bloom; the flesh is tender and juicy with a sweet, pleasant flavor making it one of the good purple plums, though not one of the best in quality. The tree is large, vigorous, hardy, with a round and spreading top. This gives it great bearing capacity but though productive in the Station orchard, the variety does not have the reputation of being fruitful and fails chiefly as a commercial sort for this reason. It is a late-maturing variety and comes on the market at a time when plums are wanted for home canning, the demand for this purpose, for which it is most suitable, helping greatly its sale. The variety has two peculiarities; the petals are comparatively distinct from each other giving the flower, or a tree in flower, an odd appearance; and the leaves are remarkably variable in size.
It is not quite certain when or where this variety first came to notice. C. Reagles, a competent authority, of Schenectady, New York, in describing the Quackenboss for The Cultivator in 1858, says “There is a seedling tree of this identical sort in the garden of Mr. S. C. Groot of this city, which is about thirty years old.” If true, this puts its origin in Schenectady at about 1828. But beyond question a Mr. Quackenboss of Greenbush, New York, introduced the variety, though some years later, and it has taken his name. In 1871, the American Pomological Society placed the Quackenboss on its recommended fruit list.
Tree very large and vigorous, round-topped, hardy, productive; branches numerous, ash-gray, the trunk rough but the limbs smooth, with smallish raised lenticels; branchlets thick, with long internodes, greenish-red changing to brownish-drab over red, dull, pubescent, with numerous, small lenticels; leaf-buds of medium size and length, pointed, free.
Leaves flattened, obovate or oval, variable in size averaging one and seven-eighths inches wide by three and five-eighths inches long; upper surface very dark green, nearly glabrous, with a grooved midrib; lower surface pale green, pubescent; apex obtuse, base tapering, margin finely serrate, with small black glands; petiole five-eighths inch long, pubescent, faintly tinged red, glandless or with from one to four small, globose, greenish-yellow glands usually on the stalk.