18T6.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



Sit 



mountain wood^ of the greater part of Europe, 

 and from these indigenous species have been 

 raised the whole of our orchard and garden 

 varieties. Their amelioration by cultivation, and 

 the perpetuation of varieties by grafting, have 

 been celebrated by poets from the time of Ovid, 

 and continue to the present day. Pliny enumer- 

 ates thirty-nine different pears known to the 

 Romans, several of them being also mentioned 

 by Virgil, Cato, Columella, Juvenal, Macrobius, 

 «fec. Ffee has endeavored to identify some of 

 them with modern French varieties, and Gallesio 

 with Italian ones, as in the following examples : — 



Plinian Names. Supposed Correspoxding 

 Modern Names. 



Amerina serotina . . San Tommaso. 



Lactea Perle or Blanquette. 



Dolabelliana .... Winter Bon-Chretien. 

 Falerna succosa . . . Bergamot. 

 Favoriana rubra . . Large Muscat. 

 Superba parva . . . Little Muscat. 



Hordearia Common Muscat. 



Mustea A variety of Bon-Chr6- 



tien. 

 Picena or picentina . Spina. 

 Pompeiana mammosa. Campana. 

 Viridis Spadona vernina, con- 

 sidered by Gallesio as 

 a most ancient Italian 

 Pear. 



Myrapia Guignoline . 



Volema Another Bon-Chretien. 



In Tuscany, under the Medici, we find, in a 

 manuscript list by Micheli of the fruits served up 

 in the course of the year at the table of the 

 Grand Duke Cosmo III, an enumeration of two 

 hundred and nine different varieties of pears, 

 and another manuscript of that time raises the 

 number to two hundred and thirty-two. Among 

 them, grafts of the Dorice Pear of Portugal were 

 introduced by the same Grand Duke, at a cost of 

 one hundred golden doubloons, whence it re^ 

 ceived the name of Pera cento doppie, by which 

 it is still known, as well as by that of the Ducal 

 Pear. — Gardener's Magazine. 



Species of Americ.u^ Plums. — So many of our 

 readers fail to distinguish the species of Ameri- 

 can plums that the following, prepared for Mr. 

 Curley's recent work on " Nebraska," by Prof 

 Aughem, will help them. 



" There are three type species of plums in the 

 State, namely, Prunus americana, P. chicasa, 

 and P. punxila. Of these there is an almost end- 



less number of varieties. In a plum thicket in 

 Dakota County, covering only a few acres, I 

 counted, while in fruit, nineteen varieties of 

 Prunus americana and P. chicasa, varying in size 

 from a fourth to 11 inches in diameter, and in color 

 from almost white and salmon, to many shades 

 of yellow, tinged with green and red, and from a 

 light, dark, and scarlet red, to purple tinged with 

 different shades of yellow. Such instances are 

 frequent over most portions of the State, the 

 plums being common in almost every county, 

 especially along the watercourses, and border- 

 ing the belts of timber. These plum groves in 

 spring time present a vast sea of flowers, whose 

 fragrance is wafted for miles, and whose beauty 

 attracts every eye. The varieties of Prunus 

 americana have oval or obovate leaves (broader 

 at the tip than where the stem is attached), with 

 saw-toothed or doubly saw-toothed edges and 

 very full of veins. The fruit is globular or oval, 

 and ranges from half an inch to 1^ inches in 

 diameter, the latter being an exceptionally large 

 size. The color is all shades of yellow, with 

 some red and crimson. Its juice is pleasant, but 

 its skin is tough and acerb, and its stone is sharp- 

 edged or margined. The shrub varies in height 

 from 6 to 25 feet. The fruit ripens in August 

 and the first half of September. These are the 

 prevailing characters, but they vary greatly, some 

 of the varieties producing fruit which is a great 

 improvement in size and taste on the type species, 

 while others again, have deteriorated. Still more 

 subject to change is the Prunus chicasa, which 

 grows from 4 to 12 feet in height, sometimes 

 thorny, and always with long, narrow, almost 

 lance-shaped, acute leaves, whose edges are set 

 with very fine teeth. The fruit is globular, of all 

 shades of red, and from half an inch to an inch 

 or more in diameter, of pleasant, some varieties 

 of delicious, flavor, thin-skinned, and containing 

 an almost round and entirely marginless stone. 

 The dwarf or sand-hill Cherry, so famoR^is on 

 our western plains, is really botanically a dwarf 

 plum, Prunus pumila, and therefore we speak of 

 it last. The stem is smooth, depressed, trailing or 

 semi-erect, from 8 to 24 inches high. The leaves 

 are obovate lanceolate, tapering to the base, 

 sometimes a little toothed towards the apex, and 

 pale underneath ; the flowers numerous, two to 

 four in a cluster. The fruit varies greatly, but is 

 generally about half an inch long and three- 

 eighths broad, ovoid, dark purple, brown purple, 

 brown, reddish, or nearly black, generally sweet, 

 sometimes delicious and occasionally almost in- 



