Note 230 — Chapter IV · THE MINOR VARIETIES OF PLUMS (continued 4)

Joseph L. Normand was born at Marksville, Louisiana, January 14, 1853. He was educated in the public schools of the parish in which he lived. After leaving school he followed the vocation of a printer for a number of years, though from childhood horticulture had been an avocation with him. Before middle life he gave up office work to begin actively the growing of nursery and fruit trees. His work in horticulture early developed into plant-breeding and towards the close of his life all of his energies were devoted to the production of new types of plants. In his plant-breeding Mr. Normand became noted as a hybridizer and a great majority of the fruits and ornamentals sent out by him were hybrids. Among these may be named the Carnegie Orange, a hybrid more or less frost resistant, which he obtained by crossing the Louisiana Sweet Orange with Citrus trifoliata. Mr. Normand also devoted much time to the testing of figs and sent out the New French Fig, selected from some seventy varieties which he had grown. Pears, apples and plums received his attention and in all these fruits he developed original types by hybridization. Possibly his most meritorious work with the plum has been in testing Triflora and native varieties, although he has sent out not a few hybrids of this fruit most of which, however, do not thrive in northern climates. Mr. Normand did for his region what Kerr, Munson, Terry, Lord and Williams have done in other parts of North America in testing plums. All who knew Mr. Normand say that in this day of commercialism he worked almost wholly for the love of plants—to improve them for his fellow fruit-growers regardless of the money to be made in his calling. He lived and worked in a region where his achievements were at first little known and little understood, quite content to work for his work’s sake, but in the end he gained distinction among the fruit-growers of his State and attracted the attention of plant-breeders all over the United States. Mr. Normand died in the town of his birth, April 17, 1910.