690 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
placed in an oven, from which the bread has been just drawn. The door of 
the oven is closed, and the crevices are stopped round it, with clay, or dry 
grass. An hour afterwards, the plums are taken out, and the oven is again 
shut, with a cup of water in it, for about two hours. When the water is so 
warm as just to be able to bear the finger in it, the prunes are again placed in 
the oven, and left there for twenty-four hours, when the operation is finished, 
and they are put loosely into small, long, and rather deep boxes, for sale. 
The common sorts are gathered by shaking the trees; but the finer kinds, for 
making French plums, must be gathered in the morning, before the rising of 
the sun, by taking hold of the stalk between the thumb and finger, without 
touching the fruit; and laid gently on a bed of vine leaves in a basket. When 
the baskets are filled, without the plums touching each other, they are re- 
moved to the fruit-room, where they are left for two or three days exposed 
to the sun and air; after which the same process is employed as for the others ; 
and in this way the delicate bloom is retained on the fruit, even when quite dry. 
Zwetschen Wasser and Raki. Both these liquors closely resemble kirsch- 
wasser; and the former is prepared in the same manner. Raki is made in 
Hungary, by fermenting apples ground or crushed with bruised plums, and 
distilling the liquor. The spirit produced is said to be very agreeable to the 
taste, and, though not quite so strong, much more wholesome than brandy. 
In the south of France, an excellent spirit is obtained from the bruised pulp 
and kernels of plums, fermented. with honey and flour, by distillation in the 
usual manner. 
Soil, Situation, Propagation, §c. The plum prefers a free loamy soil, some- 
what calcareous, and a situation open and exposed to the sun. The ornamental 
and fruit-bearing kinds are almost invariably propagated by grafting or budding ; 
and this is generally performed on stocks of the muscle, St. Julien, or any of 
the free-growing-plums; or on the Mirabelle plum, when the plants are in- 
tended to form dwarfs. The stocks may either be raised from seeds, treated as 
recommended for those of the sloe, or from layers. Plants are obtained, by 
the latter mode, in a very simple and expeditious manner. The shoots of the 
preceding year, which have risen from the stools, are pegged down to the 
ground quite flat, and covered to the depth of an inch with soil. The entire 
shoot being thus covered and kept moist, there is an equal stimulus applied 
to all the buds on it; each of which produces a vertical shoot, a foot or two 
in length, according to the soil and the season ; and each of these shoots, when 
taken off in the November following, is found to have abundance of roots. 
The branches which were laid down to produce these shoots are then cut 
off close to the stool ; and the shoots produced from the centre of the stool, 
during summer, are, during winter, or early in spring, laid down in their turn, 
as above described. This is the practice in the Goldworth and other nur- 
series, where stocks are raised in immense quantities to supply the general 
demand of the trade. 
&% 4, P,ca'npicans Balb. The whitish-Jeaved Plum Tree. 
404 Identification. Balb. Cat. Taur., 1813. p. 62.; ? Willd. Enum. Suppl., p. 32. ; 
Dec. Prod., 2. p. 533,; Don’s Mill., 2. p. 498, 
Engraving. Our figs. 404. 405. 
405 
Spec. Char., §c. Branches pubescent. 
Flowers 2 or 3 together, upon short 
pubescent peduncles. Calyx bell- 
shaped. Leaves broadly ovate, 
whitish beneath. Stipules of the 
GENES length of the petiole, very narrow, 
leet Resex/ and cut inatoothed manner. (Dec. 
pea SN Sse ro se Prod,, ii. p. 532.) A shrub, growing «\ 
Sef ain ove to the height of 6ft. or 8ft.; in- 
troduced in 1820, and producing its white flowers in April. 
It is not known of what country it is a native. 



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