CHAPTER X. 



Plums. 



WITH the exception of the grape there is no 

 wild fruit so common to the Great 

 Northwest as the plum. Like the grape it sub- 

 mits readily to domestication and cultivation. 



Plums are classed botanically into three different 

 species: Prunus, domestica, P. Americana (or Can- 

 adensis) and P. Chicasa. 



The first is the small plum and tree of the Old 

 World, from which we have the class known as the 

 Gage family, and will merit but little notice here, 

 as they are almost if not quite unfit for the changed 

 location from the more equable and moist cli- 

 mate of Europe, to the more rigorous and dry 

 climates to which this work is restricted. These 

 fruits are grown largely in California, and on the 

 Pacific coast in many places. They are also grown, 

 but to a less extent, on the Atlantic coast, not so 

 much on account of unsuitable climatic conditions, 

 as to diseases which attack them there, principally 

 the black knot or black wart. They consist of 

 such varieties as Lombard, Yellow Egg, Coe, Green 

 and Purple Gage, Bradshaw, German Prune, Ponds 

 Seedling, Jefferson, Washington and many others. 



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