Note 116 — Chapter I · EDIBLE PLUMS (continued 2)

A brief account of the life of Liberty Hyde Bailey appeared in The Grapes of New York (page 142), but his work with plums deserves further mention. The foundation of our present knowledge of the cultivated species and races of American and Triflora plums was laid by the comprehensive study of these fruits made by Bailey in the closing decade of the Nineteenth Century. His examination of plums may be said to have begun in 1886 with the setting of an orchard of native plums—probably the first general collection of these plums planted—on the grounds of the Michigan Agricultural College, Lansing, Michigan. The results of his studies have largely appeared in the publications of the Cornell Agricultural Experiment Station, the first of which was The Cultivated Native Plums and Cherries published in 1892; The Japanese Plums, 1894; Revised Opinions of the Japanese Plums, 1896; Third Report upon Japanese Plums, 1897; Notes upon Plums, 1897. Beside these bulletins a monograph of the native plums was published in The Evolution of our Native Fruits in 1898 and a brief but complete monograph of the Genus Prunus in the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture in 1901. These are but the chief titles under which his studies of plums have appeared, several minor contributions having been printed from time to time in the horticultural press. While Dr. Bailey has given especial attention to all fruits grown in eastern America, it is probable that pomology is most indebted to him for his long and painstaking work with the difficult Genus Prunus with which he has done much to set the varieties and species in order.