Jrom Botanical and Economic Aspects. 223 
A few, like Nos. 2 and 5, have rough cling-stone fruits, 
the firmer pulpy bands in such specimens being adherent to 
the stone, some like Nos. 7, 8 and 11 are only slightly cling- 
stone, while the majority are free-stone. The last condition 
is specially true for the red-yellow and yellow varieties. 
The taste of the fruits is determined largely by the presence 
or absence of sugar, tannin and acid constituents. Wide 
variations occur in the relative quantity of these. Thus, in 
small, greenish-purple varieties like No. 1, that mature late in 
the season, the amount of sugar is small, the proportion of 
tannin large, so that they are inedible. Increase in size of the 
purplish-blue and blue-black types is generally accompanied 
by marked increase in the sugar content, and reduction in the 
tannin when the fruit is fully ripe. On this account the taste 
of No. 7 is highly agreeable, and ranks it with the best of our 
summer fruits. On the other hand, No. 5, even when ripe, has a 
decided tannin grip as in some of our coarser bird-cherries. 
In the purplish-red and red fruits of Nos. 8 and 9g, the 
amounts of tannin and of acid are considerable, but as we pass 
to the reddish-yellow and yellow varieties, the tannin decreases, 
and the acid slightly so, till in Nos. 10 and 11 of the table 
the fruits become of superior quality. It will thus be observed 
that the coarsest types of fruits are the small, late maturing 
ones of greenish-purple hue, and that the blue-black, at the 
end of one series of types, also the red-yellow and yellow at 
the end of another, are almost free from tannin and are rich in 
sugars and mild acids. 
(/) Maturation in Fruit.—In many of our highly-cultivated 
fruits, such as the apple, pear, peach and plum, the period for 
ripening of the different varieties may extend over two to three 
months, but we rarely see such variation on a wide scale in a 
wild type. The beach plum presents such a condition. 
In an average season along the New Jersey coast, the 
earliest bushes to ripen are those which bear reddish-purple 
