THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. j55 



into England in the time of Henry VII. From these accounts it would 

 seem that this plum was established in England some time during the 

 latter part of the Fifteenth Centiuy. For three hundred years it thrived 

 so well in England that writers had no hesitation in pronouncing it their 

 best plum. From England it came early to America. Probably it was 

 included in the shipment of plum pits ordered from England by the 

 Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in New Eng- 

 land in 1629. In spite of its Old World reputation, however, it never found 

 favor here and is now rarely if ever seen even in collections. The older 

 writers mentioned a Black Perdrigon which they considered distinct from 

 the variety under discussion. Inasmuch as all plums imtil recently were 

 propagated from seed, it is more than likely that there were all gradations 

 in color and that some attempted to classify the darker seedlings as a 

 distinct variety. This hypothesis is borne out by the fact that after graft- 

 ing and budding became the common method of propagation the so-called 

 Black Perdrigon became extinct. The following description is a compilation. 



Tree vigorous, but not always productive; young shoots pubescent; fruit mid- 

 season; medium in size, obovate, compressed on the suture side, purple or blue, with 

 thick bloom; stem slender; skin thick, very tough; flesh greenish-yellow, firm, rich, 

 sweet, aromatic; good; stone small, flattened, clinging; fruit hangs on the tree until 

 it shrivels. 



BODDAERT 



Prunus domestica 



I. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 2d App. 156. 1876. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 36. 1877. 3. Hogg 

 Fruit Man. 68t. 1884. 4. Mathieu A'om. Pom. 423. 1889. 5. Lucsls Vollst. Hand. Obst. 4y2. 1894. 

 6. Waugh Plum Cult. 97. 1901. 



Boddaert's Green Gage i, 3. Boddart's Green Gage 2. Boddaert's Reine Claude 4. Boddaert's 

 Green Gage 4, 6. Reine-Clatide de Boddaert 4. Reine-Claude Boddaert i, 3, 4. Reine-Claude von 

 Boddaert 4. 



Boddaert has much to commend it, the fruit being surpassed by that 

 of but few other pltuns of its type — that of the Reine Claude. The plums 

 are large, attractive and of very good quality. Since the variety has been 

 known so long it must be that the tree has some fatal defect; otherwise 

 it would be more largely grown. Boddaert is probably a Reine Claude 

 seedling and is of foreign origin, the details of its early history not being 

 known. Downing, in 1876, first mentioned the variety in America; the 

 following year it was placed on the fruit list in the American Pomo- 

 logical Society catalog. 



