478 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



a currant nnder the name of •'•' May's Victoria ;" 

 ■which, I believe, he procured from the gardens at 

 Raby Castle : this has recently been described as 

 the ••■Raby Castle Currant.'" In a visit to the 

 north, a short time since, I was informed that this 

 currant has been long known in the neisrhborhood 

 of Hexham and Newcastle as the " Houghton Cas- 

 tle Currant :" and that it was sent from that dis- 

 trict some years since to the gardens at Raby Cas- 

 tle. This is undoubtedly the same as the Goliath ; 

 it has. therefore, at the present time four names. 

 It is an excellent late currant. 



Prtms. — Among the novelties in this family the 

 following have fruited here abundantly from pyra- 

 midal trees in the open quarters : 



Bleecker's Scarlet, or L#ombard, an American 

 variety, one of the hardiest and most prolific sorts I 

 have yet seen ; fruit large, and of a purplish red : ripe 

 September 16ih ; not quite first rate, but very good. 



De Montfort. This is much like Royale Hative, 

 but larger : ripe middle of August ; exceedingly 

 rich and good. 



Imperiale de Milan. Fruit large, oval, and of a 

 deep purple ; ripe October I2th ; juicy, sugary, and 

 excellent. 



Denniston's Superb. An American plum, very 

 hardy and robust in its habit, and one of the great- 

 est bearers we have : fruit jrreen, about the size of 

 the Green Gage, but slightly oval; a good plum, 

 but not equal to the Green Gage in flavor ; it is, 

 however, valuable on account of its great produc- 

 tiveness, aad also because it ripens from a -week to 

 ten days before the Green Gage. 



Isabella. Fruit large, red, handsome, and very 

 good : ripe the middle of September : flesh parts 

 freely from the stone. 



Jefferson. I ate my fruit of this fine plum, pre- 

 served on the tree in a muslin bag, O^ tober I2th, 

 from a dwarf in the open ground : nothing can be 

 imagined more delicious : the moment it was bit- 

 ten the juice jwured out : flavor rich and refreshing, 

 not too lusciious, as is often the case with a Green 

 Gage ; colour golden yellow, spotted with brown ; 

 in size nearly equal to Coe"s Golden Drop, from 

 which I should say it was raised, as the trees close- , 

 ly resemble it in their leaves and shoots. | 



Mamelonne. This is a plum raised by M. Sa- 

 geret. a crardener^ near Paris ; it is almost gro- 

 tesque in its shape ; instead of being depressed at 

 the stalk, as most round plums are, it has a small 

 nipple-like protuberance, and some of its fruit are i 

 irregularly knobbed : it is of the Green Gage family 

 and much like it in flavor, parting freely from the 

 stone and ripening ten or twelve days before it ; , 

 colour green, densely spotted with red. j 



Peach Plum. This is a large red plum, very 

 handsome, good, and a great bearer ; it ripened 

 here about the middle of August. . 



Purple Favorite. An American plum, ripe Sep- ; 

 tember ]2th : purple, large, and very handsome, 

 roundish, in shape like La Royale ; a very excel- 

 lent and hardy variety. ! 



Quetsche, St Martin's. One of our best and I 

 hardiest late plums. I gathered my fruit October j 

 20th : colour pale yellow, spotted with brown: in 

 flavor it slightly resembles the Green Gage : very I 



; juicv and good ; shape oval ; about equal in size to 

 the Imperatrice, or perhaps a little larger. 



Red Gage. An American plum, rather small, 

 red, ripe beginning of September, agreeable. 



Reine Claude de Bavay. I saw the parent tree, 

 a standard of this very fine plum, in the garden of 

 the late Major Esperen at Malines, towards the end 

 of last August, It is apparently about fifteen years 

 old ; it was covered with fine fruit ; they were in- 

 deed more numerous than the leaves. I ate of fruit 

 produced here on a dwarf standard, preserved un- 

 der muslin, October 12th, perfectly fresh and un- 

 shrivelled ; shape roundish oval : colour greenish 

 yellow, spotted with red ; flesh rather firmer than 

 that of Jefl^erson, but juicy, sugary, rich, and ex- 

 cellent : size between the Green Gage and Wash- 

 ington ; indeed it much resembles the latter in shape; 

 it has rotmdish shining leaves and smooth shoots, 

 very much resembling the "Washington, only that 

 the former are smaller and the latter more slender, 

 and is doubtless a hybrid between that and the 

 Green Gage. To this plum hangs a not very agree- 

 able tale. In 1S43 I received it from France, and 

 in the autumn of 1S45, having a report from a friend 

 on the Continent of its great excellence, I adver- 

 tised plants of it for sale. Not having enough, I 

 bought 100 from a most honorable nurseryman in 

 France. "When they arrived I felt some doubts, 

 owing to their having prominent pointed buds. 

 Before I sold any, I wrote to him expressing my 

 doubts. In reply, I received an invoice from a 

 nurseryman at Ghent, dated 1843, in which some 

 plants were charged to him at a high price as Reine 

 Claude de Bavay. As this person at Ghent had 

 stated that he alone had received this plum from 

 Major Esperen, my scruples were quieted ; but 

 when some plants I had left unsold came into leaf, 

 in the spring of 1S46. I fouad they were Coe's 

 Golden Drop. In the autumn of 1846. feeling very 

 anxious that mv friends should have the true sort, 

 and then beginning to doubt even those I had first 

 received from France, I wrote to ^Ir. Tan Houtte, 

 of Ghent, for 100 of the true sort, to replace those 

 which I had sent out incorrect in 1845. I sent these 

 to my friends with the fullest conviction they were 

 correct, as Mr. Van Houtte assured me they were ; 

 and as Malines is so short a distance from Ghent, 

 I cnnclnded that they must be. My chagrin may 

 therefore be imagined when these plants, and grafts 

 from them, came into leaf, in the spring of 1847, to 

 find them, to all appearance, nothing but our old 

 Green Gage, differing in leaves and shoots from 

 those I received first from France, (the true sort,) 

 which, as I have before stated, much resembles the 

 Washington in habit. Mr. Low. of Clapton, also 

 advertised plants of Reine Claude de Bavay in the 

 auttmin of 1S45 or spring of 1846. I bought some 

 plants to ascertain if they were correct, i. e., if 

 they resembled in habit what I considered to be the 

 true sort, with broad shining leaves. These proved 

 to be the Green Gage ; consequently, I am led to 

 assume that all those sold by Mr. Low were the 

 same. There are, therefore, in France, Belgium 

 and England, three* varieties of plums bearing the 



* I shonld think very probably there are four or five ; for I 

 saw a bed of {riants in a nursery in Ghent under the name, 

 which contained four or five sons. 



