The plums of New York

by U. P. Hedrick

At the end of the Nineteenth Century the plum ranked third in commercial value among orchard products, being surpassed by the apple and the peach. The increase in number of trees and bushels of fruit for the whole country for the decade ending with 1899 was remarkable, being for trees 334.9 per ct. and for bushels of fruit 243.1 per ct. These great increases were due to very large planting of plums for prunes on the Pacific Coast and to the widespread distribution during these ten years of native and Triflora varieties. It is very doubtful if the percentage of increase has been nearly so great during the present decade. It is likely that the development of rapid transportation and refrigerator service between the great plum-growing region of the far West and the markets of the East has caused a decrease in trees and production in the eastern states.

Plum-growing, as with the growing of all fruits, is confined to localities geologically, climatically and commercially adapted to the industry. If we take New York as an example we find that plums are grown largely only in ten of the sixty-one counties, according to the census of 1900. These with the number of trees in each are as follows: Niagara 184,133, Ontario 92,917, Seneca 59,205, Monroe 57,246, Schuyler 48,336, Orleans 41,985, Yates 32,742, Albany 32,373, Erie 30,281, Wayne 30,047. Over 62 per ct. of all the trees in the State are in these counties and probably they produce more than 90 per ct. of the plums sent to market.

A canvass of the acreage of four hundred plum-growers in New York shows that the following in order named are the leading commercial varieties: Bradshaw, including Niagara, which is identical, Reine Claude including its several near variations, Italian Prune, German Prune, Lombard, Shropshire, Grand Duke, Washington and Gueii. Abundance and Burbank are as widely distributed as any of these, chiefly owing to the zeal with which nurserymen have sold these varieties, but are seldom grown exclusively in commercial plantations, and their popularity is now on the wane as is also the case with Red June which has been largely planted. Varieties of native plums are hardly grown in New York though now and then they are found in home collections and there are a few small commercial plantations of them.

The fruit of the native and Triflora plums is so inferior to that of the Domestica sorts for market and domestic purposes, that varieties of these are not likely to take the place of the Domestica plums. Producers and purchasers are now familiar with the possibilities of the natives and of the Orientals and have not been greatly attracted by them in New York. It is true, however, that the natives have been chiefly represented by Wild Goose and the Trifloras by Abundance and Burbank—scarcely the best that these groups of plums can produce. It is true, too, that the varieties have been greatly over-praised and that they now suffer from the reaction. Yet the Domesticas command the market and their reliableness in the orchard gives them a popularity in this region which other plums cannot for a long while trench upon.

This brings us to a discussion of the conditions under which plums are now grown in North America and more particularly in New York. Of these, climate, with this fruit, should be first discussed, outranking all others in importance.

CLIMATE

Climatic conditions determine the culture of the plum not only for a region but for a locality; not only as to whether it is possible to grow plums at all but as to whether this fruit can be grown with reasonable prospects of commercial success in competition with other localities. The constituents of climate which are important in plum-growing are temperature, rainfall and air currents, the last two being largely dependent upon the first. The relationship existing between plums and these factors of climate are fairly well known for they have received attention from the very beginning of plum culture.

There are four phases of temperature that need to be considered in order to get a clear insight into the climatic conditions which govern production of fruit crops. These are, the daily, monthly and annual changes in temperature and the extremes in temperature. Of these the daily and annual changes are of little importance. All plants are very adaptable to daily variations in climate and are little affected by them. Annual variations are shown by statements of the annual mean temperatures but such statements are of small value to fruit-growers as they may be the result of averaging very divergent temperatures or temperatures very close together. The monthly mean, however, is a very fair criterion of climate for fruit-growing, especially when given with the amount and distribution of rainfall.