DUANE'S PUKPLE PLUM. 



THE DUANE'S PURPLE PLUM. 



SYX0NYii3: Duane^s Purple French. — Fruit and Fruit Trees of America, Porn. Manual, and 

 Keurick's American Orchardist. Red Magnum Bonum, of some collections. 



Several fine fruits liave been received in this country from abroad without names, 

 and notwithstanding the numerous and extensive importations of varieties for many 

 years back, no one has been able to identify them. Such are the Golden Beurre of 

 Bilhoa Pear, an excellent and popular sort now considerably disseminated ; the Brad- 

 shaw or Large Black Imperial Plum ; the Great Bigarreau Cherry. The Duane^s 

 Purple Plum and several others are in the same category. It is quite possible, how- 

 ever, that all these fruits will yet be identified, as we are every year coming into closer 

 communication with Euro2:)ean pomologists, and becoming more familiar with their 

 collections. Practically it is perhaps of no very great importance, yet it would be 

 advantageous to pomological science, and more satisfactory to the intelligent cultivator, 

 were we able to trace the history and origin of these fruits. 



The Duane's Purple * is a large and beautiful fruit, of good but not first rate quality. 

 The tree is a free and moderately stout grower, with very distinctly marked gray woolly 

 shoots, and bears the most jibundant crops. It is cultivated, or was cultivated a few 

 years ago, at Albany as the Red Magnum Bonum, a veiy different fruit in every 

 respect. Mr. Elliot gives the English Pond^s Seedling as a synonym, but for what 

 reason we do not know. We are not aware that these two varieties have ever been 

 confounded. The English '•'■ Pond''s Seedling'''' or Fort Hill Plum is a very large, oval, 

 showy, reddish variety, like the Red Magnum Bonum, but has no resemblance to 

 Duane's Purple. This latter variety is now classed with Smith's Orleans, Imperial 

 Gage, Washington, Coe^s Golden D7'02\ Lombard, and other free-growing, productive, 

 valuable varieties for general cultivation, though not ranking in quality with a Green 

 Gage or a Jefferson. We copy from the Fruits and Fruit Trees of America Mr. 

 Downing's excellent description: 



"Duaxe's PuRrLE Frenoh. — A superb-looking purple fruit of the largest size, and of 

 very fair quality, — occasionally, in warm dry seasons, first rate. It was imported from 

 France by Jas. Duane, Esq., of Duanesburgh, N. Y., but without a name, and is now gen- 

 erally known under the present title. We have seen this fruit, about Albany, confounded 

 with the Piuple Magnum Bonum. The tree is easily known by the gray appearance of 

 the wood, and large leaves, which are unusually woolly on the under surface. It is a 

 highly attractive dessert fruit, ripening rather before the Plum season, and bearing well. 



"Branches — very downy. Fruit — very large, oval or oblong, considerably swollen on 

 one side of the suture. Skin — reddish purple in the sun, but a very pale red in the shade, 

 sparingly dotted with yellow specks, and covered with lilac bloom. Stalk — three-fourths 

 of an inch long, slender, set in a narrow cavity. Flesh — amher-colorcd, juicy, sprightly, 

 moderately sweet, adheres i)artially to the stone. Ripens with the Washington, (or a little 

 before,) about the 10th of August." 



♦ See frontispiece. 



