The plums of New York

by U. P. Hedrick

NEW YORK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION,

Geneva, N. Y., December 31, 1910.

To the Honorable Board of Control of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station:

Gentlemen:—I have the honor to transmit herewith Part II of the report of this institution for the year 1910, to be known as The Plums of New York. This constitutes the third in the series of fruit publications that is being prepared under your authority.

The data embodied in the volume are the result of long-continued studies and observations at this institution as well as throughout the State, to which has been added a large amount of information that commercial plum-growers have very kindly furnished. The attempt has been made to produce a monograph including all the cultivated plums, and it is hoped that the result will be recognized as a worthy advance in the literature of this class of fruits.

W. H. JORDAN,
Director.

PREFACE

The Plums of New York is the third monograph of the fruits of this region published by the New York Agricultural Experiment Station. The aims of these books have been stated in full in The Grapes of New York, but it is considered best to re-state some of these briefly and to indicate some features in which the book on plums differs from the one on grapes.

Broadly speaking, the aim has been to make The Plums of New York a record of our present knowledge of cultivated plums. The book has been written for New York but its contents are so general in character that the work applies to the whole country and more or less to the world. The first chapter is a historical account and a botanical classification of plums; the second, a discussion of the present status of plum-growing in America; while the third and fourth are devoted to varieties of plums. The first and last two of these chapters contain the synonymy and bibliography of the species and varieties of plums. In the foot-notes running through the book biographical sketches are given of the persons who have contributed most to plum culture in America; here may be found also matters pertaining to plums not properly included in the text but necessary for its best understanding. Important varieties, so considered from various standpoints, with the bark and the flowers of several species, are illustrated in colors.

The Plums of New York is a horticultural and not a botanical work. But in a study of the fruit from a horticultural standpoint one must of necessity consider botanical relationships. It is hoped that in this enforced systematic study of plums, however, something has been added to the botanical knowledge of this fruit. In classifying the varieties and species, to show their characters and relationships, the author has chosen to dispose of the groups in accordance with his own views though the arrangement adopted is, for most part, scarcely more than a modification of existing classifications.