“In 1856 there was, on the Middle Yuba River, not far from Forest City, in Sierra County, a wayside establishment known as ‘Plum Valley Ranch,’ so-called from the great quantity of wild plums growing on and about the place. The plum by cultivation gave a more vigorous growth and larger fruit. Transplanted from the mountains into the valley they are found to ripen earlier. Transplanted from the mountains to a farm near the coast, in Del Norte County, they did not thrive. One variety, moved from the hills near Petaluma in 1858, was grown as an orchard tree for fifteen years, and improved both in growth and quality of fruit by cultivation.... Recently excellent results have been reported from the domestication of the native plum in Nevada County, and fruit shown at the State Fair of 1888 gave assurance that by cultivation and by selecting seedlings valuable varieties can be obtained. It is stated that in Sierra County the wild plum is the only plum which finds a market at good prices, and that cultivated gages, blue and egg plums scarcely pay for gathering. The wild plum makes delicious preserves.” In its typical form _Prunus subcordata_ is a shrub and is often only a low bush but under the most favorable conditions it attains the dimension and shape of a small tree. In its roundish, roughish leaves it so closely resembles the Old World types of plums that it becomes the nearest approach to them to be found among our American species. But in the globular, red or purple subacid fruit it betrays its affinity to the American plums, as it does also in the flat, sometimes turgid, smooth stone to which the flesh tenaciously clings. The flowers are white, fading to rose and borne abundantly, making the plant an attractive ornamental in blooming time as it is also in the autumn when the foliage turns to brilliant red, scarlet or crimson with touches of yellow. The fruit is sometimes so poor in quality as to be inedible but on the other hand is sometimes quite equal to some of the cultivated plums, especially in its botanical variety, Kelloggii. That the fruit is capable of improvement by the selection of seedling varieties and useful in hybridizing with other species can hardly be doubted. Luther Burbank, under date of December 6, 1909, writes in this regard as follows: