[Illustration: DE SOTO] _Prunus americana_ =1.= _Ill. Hort. Soc. Rpt._ 225. 1877. =2.= _Ia. Hort. Soc. Rpt._ 356. 1879. =3.= _Ibid._ 159. 1880. =4.= _Ibid._ 237. 1882. =5.= _Am. Pom. Soc. Cat._ 42. 1883. =6.= _Ia. Hort. Soc. Rpt._ 366. 1883. =7.= _Ill. Hort. Soc. Rpt._ 63. 1890. =8.= _Cornell Sta. Bul._ =38=:37, 86. 1892. =9.= _Wis. Sta. Bul._ =63=:24, 35, 36, fig. 16. 1897. 10. Waugh _Plum Cult._ 147. 1901. 11. Budd-Hansen _Am. Hort. Man._ 295. 1903. =12.= _Can. Exp. Farm Bul._ =43=:30. 1903. =13.= _S. Dak. Sta. Bul._ =93=:15. 1905. Traer 3. Trayer 4. De Soto probably holds first place among the Americana plums in the favor of fruit-growers. The qualities which commend it are: A tree rather better suited to the orchard than other varieties of _Prunus americana_ having little of the waywardness of most sorts of its species and somewhat the manner of growth of the European plums. The trees, too, are enormously productive, so much so that in many cases their vitality is weakened by over-bearing unless thinned. The fruits of De Soto, while not as large nor as brilliantly colored as some of the Americanas, are not surpassed by any of the native plums in quality and keep and ship as well as any. The variety becomes, therefore, a market sort of value in some regions. The fruits are a little more subject to curculio than those of most of the native plums and the trees blight in the South somewhat and do not stand the drouths of the Mississippi Valley as well as some other varieties. Notwithstanding these defects, speaking generally, the De Soto may be recommended as one of the best of its species. De Soto was found on the bank of the Mississippi River near De Soto, Wisconsin. The first settler to call attention to the plum was a Mr. Tupper who settled on the land where it was found in 1853 or 1854. The Trayer Brothers bought the place in 1855 and in clearing the farm they removed all the plum trees except a grove of what was at first called Trayer, afterwards De Soto. Later Stephen Heal came into possession of the property and in 1864 Elisha Hale, Lansing, Iowa, commenced to cultivate and disseminate the variety. De Soto was placed on the American Pomological Society fruit catalog list in 1883, dropped in 1891, and restored again in 1897. Tree small, intermediate in vigor, spreading, open-topped, perfectly hardy, produces heavy crops annually, bears young; branches rough and shaggy, somewhat zigzag, thorny, dark ash-brown, with inconspicuous, small, raised, lenticels; branchlets numerous, long, green, changing to dull reddish-brown, pubescent at first, becoming glabrous late in the season, with conspicuous, large, raised lenticels; leaf-buds below medium in size, pointed, appressed.