The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-11-18
PERSIaIMONS.
The common persimmon, Diosl

The common persimmon, Dfospyros
Virginiana. ranges throughout the
country east of the AIleghanies as fal
north as New Haven, Conn, and west
of the Alleghanies from the valley OF
the Colorado river, in Texas, to south
eastern Iowa and southern Ohio. When
/ grown in the open ground, says a wri-
| ter in Farm News, it becomes tree
forty or fifty feet high, with trunk
rather more than a foot through and
round topped head, and spreading
and sometimes dropping branches. I'm
! der favorable forest conditions in the
Mississippi basin it sometimes reaches
height of more than hundred feet
with a slender trunk free from
branches seventy or eighty feet long.
One of these trees standing in the old
arboretum of Kew, which was present
| ed by the Duke of Argyle to George
| Ill, is still growing, says Garden and
Forest, apparently as contented as in
its native habitat, and measures more
than sixty feet in height, with spread
of about thirty feet, and a trunk (Which
girths five feet four inches, breast
| high.
The fruit of the persimmon ripens in
| midsummer near the gulf, but does not
mature until late in autumn in the
north, and hangs on the branches until
after frost 1t is an inch to an inch and
a half in diameter, though it varies
much in different pants of the country
and on different individual trees, not
only in size and shape, but especially
in quality. The early explorers in
America found this fruit used by the
Indians and were glad to avail them
selves of it and pronounced it pleasant
and somewhat luscious, although they
discovered that when not fully ripe
"pessimmins were harsh and choaky
and furrede in a mans mouth like
alam'' The variability of the fruit and
it's improvements by selection and Gull
tiva ton have brought it recently to the
attention of nurserymen, and, many
varieties are now propagated and sold
in different parts of the country, so that
it seems destined to become a genuine
addition to our orchard crops. We are
not aware that any successful efforts a
crossing out native species have been
made, or that it has been hybridized
with the so-called kaki, which has been
cultivated for generations as fruit
tree in Japan, where trees are found In
every garden, and where a hundred
varieties, at least, are now named and
recognized. Diospyros Kaki, or spe-
cies much resembling it, is hardy in
Pekfn and in the highlands of central
Japan, where the climate is quite as
trying as that of New England, and
there seems no reason why plants of
this northern strain should not succeed
in our middle states. At all events, by
hybridizing it with our natlVe species
we might hope to secure native fruits
of high flavor and ornamental trees of
great interest, for the kah, with its
lustrous leaves and large bright colored
fruit. which is not equalled in beauty
by any other fruit grown in north tenn
perate climates. would add greatly to
the interest of our rural landscapes. AS
an ornamental tree, our native persim--
mon certainly deserves attention, not
only because of its pale orange colored
fruit, but because it is adapted to a
great variety of conditions from light,
sandy soils to deep, rich bottom lands.
It's habit lis good, its leaves are large
and glossy, its fruit is ornamental. and
it is subject to comparatively few dis
eases or insect enemies.