In this region the St. Julien is probably the next most common stock in
plum orchards though trees on it are for most part old, as its use is
on the decrease. There is a wide-spread opinion among plum-growers that
this is a much better stock for Domestica and Insititia plums than any
other. On St. Julien stocks varieties of these species, it is claimed,
with much to substantiate the claim, produce trees that are longer-lived,
thriftier, hardier, deeper feeders, sprout less and are less susceptible
to changes in soils. The chief objections to this stock are: It is more
expensive, sometimes scarcely obtainable in France; difficult to bud; the
young trees do not make as good growth as on the Myrobalan stocks; and
the yearlings are much more susceptible to fungi while in the nursery
row, though the latter troubles can be remedied wholly or in part by
spraying. Hansen, in the reference given above, says that “the St. Julien
and European Sloe (_Prunus spinosa_) both winter-killed” in South Dakota
when used as stocks. The St. Julien stock is propagated from layers when
properly grown in France[151] but much undesirable stock is now raised
from seed. There are fruiting trees of this stock about the nurseries
in the neighborhood of this Station which show it to be an Insititia
of the Damson type, a type likely to come fairly true to seed yet not
sufficiently so as to make seed-grown trees desirable.
The Horse plum was formerly used as a stock by nurserymen a great deal
but is now wholly superseded. Indeed, it is so nearly lost to the trade
as to make it almost impossible to really know what the plum of this name
is. Some describe it as a small-fruited Domestica, others as an Insititia
similar to the St. Julien, but the majority of the trees shown by old
nurserymen in the nursery region of New York, about the only place in
which the stock was used, show it to be a Cerasifera but not Myrobalan.
Some of the named varieties of Cerasifera probably sprung from sprouts of
this stock. It seems to have had no qualities which would make it worth
while to attempt to re-establish the stock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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