dy advertised for years for the
control of this disease, and however well it may work in the hands of
experts of the various university farms, it has not proved uniformly
successful in the hands of the ordinary fruit grower.

Now, if some medicine should be invented, or some magic made, whereby
the brown rot would be banished from our orchards then a great many of
the fine varieties of hybrid plums would be transferred from the "plums
that are on the way" to the list of "plums that we already have." The
brown rot is a controlling factor.

Mr. Kellogg: What do you know about the Surprise?

Mr. Cook: Oh, I know a little more than I want to know about it. I have
had the Surprise a good many years.

Mr. Kellogg: You have been surprised with it?

Mr. Cook: Yes, sir, I have been surprised quite a bit, but in the last
two years since the plum crop failed there have been a few plums on the
Surprise trees, but for a great many years when other plums bore heavily
we got nothing.

Mr. Hansen: Do you know of any plum that has never had brown rot?

Mr. Cook: In my paper--as they only allowed me fifteen minutes I had to
cut it short, and I didn't say very much about the brown rot. All the
Americana plums, and all varieties of plums I have ever grown, have in
some way been susceptible to the brown rot, but some have been more
resistant than others. Now, that is one reason, I believe, why the
DeSoto takes the lead. It is less subject to the brown rot. We have here
a moist climate, and sunshine and dry atmosphere is the remedy, but some
of these varieties have such a peculiar skin it is resistant to brown
rot, and it seems certain, I don't know, if it is not on account of the
thick skin. The Wolf has a thick skin and is subject to brown rot, but
the DeSoto is not subject to that so much but more subject to the
curculio. The Japanese hybrid plums, Mr. Williams said at one time--I
saw in one of the reports--that he had Japanese plums enough to grow
fifty bushels of plums, but he generally only got a grape basket full.
He didn't think very much of them. In these sand cherry hybrids, I think
Mr. Hansen has done all that man could do.

Mr. Ludlow: What is the difference between the brown rot and the plum
pocket fungus?

Mr. Cook: Professor Stakman will tell you that in a later paper, but it
is an entirely different disease. The brown rot will work the season
through. It will commence on some varieties and work on the small plums
a