The plums of New York

by U. P. Hedrick

Plums in this State, and east of the Mississippi generally, are picked and put upon the market just before they reach edible condition; while farther away they must be picked much greener. It is the practice in the East to pick while still somewhat green because the fruit so picked is best handled at this stage of maturity and the brown-rot fungus is likely to destroy much of the crop if left until fully matured. Some of the Triflora sorts, Abundance, Burbank and October, for example, are picked from a week to ten days before ripe and yet develop very good color and flavor. The Domesticas need not be, and are not, picked quite so green. In picking, great diversity exists as to ladders, receptacles, and manner of conveyance from orchard to packing house. These need not be discussed here, nor need the methods of picking be spoken of further than to say that while good growers consider it vital not to bruise the fruit nor destroy the delicate bloom, if such injuries can be avoided, pickers in general are not nearly as observant of these important details as they should be.

The plum crop is sent to market, for most part in New York, in six, eight and ten-pound grape baskets with the preference at present for the smallest of these baskets. Occasionally some fruit is packed in four pound baskets. Rarely, and always to the disadvantage of both producer and consumer, plums go to market in the packages in which the fruit is picked. Indeed, it is seldom advantageous to pack the fruit in the field, it being far better to convey it to the packing house where the preparations for shipping may be more carefully made, as the package and the manner of packing advertise the product. Plums coming to this State from the far West are often wrapped individually in tissue paper as a help in safe shipping and to add to their attractiveness but the fruit grown in the State is seldom, if ever, so treated, though it is possible that choice specimens could be profitably wrapped. Of the sorting, grading, facing and marking the packages, little need be said except that they are too rarely well done in present methods, though there is a steady improvement in attending to these important matters.

Few plums are stored longer than a week at most in common storage and three weeks or a month is quite the limit for most varieties in cold storage. Late plums and in particular some of the prunes might well be stored longer than is now the custom if proper precautions are taken, as is shown by the experience at this Station where a considerable number of the Domestica and Insititia varieties are annually kept in common storage for a month or longer without unusual precautions. Some of the new varieties offered to growers, as Apple and Occident, are recommended as keeping for several weeks after picking. There is a most marked difference in the keeping qualities of this fruit and it is certain that varieties can now be selected for long keeping and that there is a fine opportunity for breeding sorts that will keep even longer than any we now have.

Marketing, the actual selling, is a business quite by itself, and since it is one which has changed greatly in the past few years and is destined to change even more in the near future, a few observations on the subject are worth putting on record. A well developed local market is undoubtedly the best selling place for the plum producer, as in it the sales are directly to the consumer, eliminating expensive middlemen. The westward spread of manufacturing industries, the workers in which use up the western-grown fruit, is making better local markets for eastern plums, a point worth noting, for many New York plum-growers have ceased planting, indeed have been removing trees, fearing western competition.

By far the greater part of the plum crop now finds its way to consumers through the following costly distributive system: 1st. Local buyers who ship to centers of consumption. 2nd. Transportation companies. 3rd. Commission companies who collect and distribute the crop in consuming centers. 4th. Retailers who parcel out the quantities and the qualities demanded by the consumer. The great defect in handling the crop is, that there are too many men and too much machinery to do the work cheaply—moreover, the risks of depreciation are great, and the fruit is not handled on a large scale chiefly because of a lack of capital by the grower or local buyer. These defects in the present distribution of plums in New York make the price received by the grower about half that paid by the consumer and the selling of the crop a more or less speculative business. The plum industry, as is the case with all fruits, is greatly hampered by the present marketing systems.

Unfortunately there is yet but a small outlet for surplus plums as manufactured products. As a rule the commercial outlook is best for those fruits of which the surplus can be turned into by-products. The only outlet for the plum in the East is in canning, as this region is unable to compete with the West in the making of prunes[155] and as the several plum products of the Old World are not in demand in the New World. Beyond question there are a number of products, as preserves, jellies from the native plums, glacé fruits, plum butter, marmalades and the like, which could be made profitable for the markets and thus a great help in utilizing surplus plums.

DISEASES.

Plums are subject to a considerable number of fungus diseases, several of which are often virulent, the virulence depending on locality, season, weather and variety. Happily for the plum industry, knowledge of plant pathology has made such advancements in recent years that nearly all of the diseases of this fruit are now controlled by preventive or remedial measures.

One of the commonest and most striking of the diseases of the plum is black-knot[156] (Plowrightia morbosa (Schw.) Saccardo) characterized by wartlike excrescences on shoots and branches. In early summer these knots are dark green, soft and velvety, but as the fungus ripens in the fall the color changes to a carbon-like black and the knots become hard and brittle. The disease is usually confined to one side of the twig or branch so that death of the affected part does not ensue at once. Black-knot is an American malady, at one time confined to the eastern part of the continent where in some localities its ravages forced the abandonment of plum-growing. The fungus is now endemic to wild or cultivated plants in practically all the plum-growing regions of the continent, but it is still epidemic only in the East, the South and West being practically free from the disease. Unless especially virulent black-knot is controlled by cutting out the diseased wood. Usually eradication is not possible without several prunings during a season.