THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 2 1 



Damsons, set the dames a work, ntarjiialad and preserved Damsons is to 

 be met with in every house." ' 



In 1797 there is the following concise account of the i)lums cultivated 

 in New England:' 



" The better sorts which arc cultivated are the horse plum, a very 

 pleasant tasted fruit, of large size; the i)each plum, red toward the sun, 

 with an agreeable tartness; the pear plum, so-called from its shape, which 

 is sweet, and of an excellent taste; the wheat plum, extremely sweet, oval, 

 and furrowed in the middle, not large; the green-gage plum, which is 

 generally preferred before all the rest." 



A search in the colonial records of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and 

 Delaware shows no records of cultivated plums in these states imtil the 

 establishment of the Bartram Botanic Garden near Philadelphia in 1728. 

 Here John Bartram grew fruits, trees and flowers of many kinds received 

 through exchanges of indigenous species with European correspondents. 

 Among the plants sent over from Europe to Bartram were several varie- 

 ties of plums which were propagated and distributed throughout Penn- 

 sylvania and nearby provinces. It must not be supposed, however, that 

 the Domestica plums had not been grown in Pennsylvania previous to 

 Bartram 's time. The plum grows fairly well in localities of this region, 

 and without question it had been planted by the early colonists with seeds 

 brought from across the sea. But the absence of references to the plum, 

 where they abound to the apple, pear, peach, quince and cherry, shows 

 that this fruit was not much cultivated by the Quakers and Swedes who 

 settled in the three states watered by the Delaware. 



In the southern colonies the Domestica plums grow but poorly, and 

 as the early settlers of these states were chiefly concerned with tobacco 

 and cotton, paying little attention to fruits, we should expect the plum 

 to have been neglected. Then, too, the peach, escaped from the early 

 Spanish settlements, grew spontaneously in many parts of the South, 

 furnishing, with the wild plums of the region, an abundant supply of stone- 

 fruits. Yet the plum was early introduced in several of the southern 

 colonies. 



Thus Beverly,' writing in 1722 of Virginia, says: " Peaches, Necta- 

 rines and Apricocks, as well as plums and cherries, grow there upon standard 



' Josselyn, John, Gent. New England Rarities London. 1672. 



'Samuel Deane, D.D. The New Englafid Fanner or Georgical Dictionary 265. 1797. 



'Beverly, Robert History of Virginia 279. 1722. RepTint iSi;?. 



