276 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



Tree large, vigorous, upright, open-topped, productive; branchlets thick, dark 

 chestnut-red; leaves obovate, one and one-half inches wide, three and one-half inches 

 long, thin; margin finely serrate, with small, dark glands; petiole slender, glandless 

 or with one or two small glands usually at the base of the leaf. 



Fruit early ; about one and three-eighths inches in diameter, roundish-truncate, dark 

 red, changing to purplish-black, overspread with thick bloom; flesh reddish, with a 

 tinge of yellow near the pit, fibrous, tender and melting, sweet, aromatic; good to very 

 good; stone semi-clinging, three-quarters inch by five-eighths inch in size, broadly 

 oval, turgid, blunt at the base and apex, with pitted surfaces; ventral suture prominent, 

 with deep furrows and with a narrow, blunt wing; dorsal suture acute or with an in- 

 distinct groove. 



McLaughlin 



Pnunis domestica 



I. Horticulturist 1:195 fig. 54. 1846. 2. Cole Am. Fr. Book 209 fig. 1849. 3. Thomas Ar 

 Fruit Cult. 2,2,2. 1849. 4- JVag. Hort. 16:456, 457 fig. 28. 1850. 5. Hovey Fr. ylm. 2:47, PI. 185 

 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 36, 55. 1852. 7. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 231. 1854. 8. Cultivator 6:52 fi 

 1858. 9. Flor. & Pom. 200. 1870. 10. Mas Le Verger 6:137, fig. 69. 1866-73. ll- Am. Card. 

 14:299 fig. 1893. 12. Gaucher Pom. Prak. Obst. 97, Col. PI. 95. 1894. 13. Cornell Sta. Bui 

 131:189. 1897. 14. Mich. Sta. Bui. 169:242, 246. 1899. ig. Waugh Plum Cult. 115, 116 fig 

 1901. 16. Va. Sta. Bui. 134:43. 1902. 17. Mass. Sta. An. Rpt. 17:159. 1905. 



M'Laughlin 2. McLaughHn's Gage Plum 9. MacLaughlin 12. MacLanglin 12. 



McLaughlin stands well up with the best of plums in quality and 

 when well grown is very attractive in appearance. Its flesh is sweet 

 and yet not so sweet as to cloy the appetite ; in flavor it is rich and delicate 

 and while somewhat like that of Reine Claude, is different, so that the 

 variety has a taste quite of its own; though the juice is abundant, the 

 flesh is not watery; the texture is neither too coarse nor too fine, too 

 fibrous nor too mealy, but in a fruit rightly matured is most pleasantly 

 melting. There are few other plums in which the characters pleasing 

 to the taste exist in such nice proportions. McLaughlin is a little smaller 

 than some other plums of its group, but is quite large enough for a dessert 

 plum. Unless at its best, it is not as attractive in color as Jefferson, Wash- 

 ington, Reine Claude and some others of its type, but at its very best, it 

 is unsurpassed by any other plum in coloring ; it has in perfection the deli- 

 cate yellow skin which belongs to the Reine Claudes upon which is marbled 

 tints of white, yellow and ciimson, the blending of which the illustration 

 shows but poorly. The fruit of McLaughUn has its imperfections, however. 

 The flesh clings tenaciously to the stone, is too melting to keep or ship 

 well and rots badly on the tree. These defects debar the variety in America, 

 with present market demands, from commercial plantations. The tree 



