PLUMS. 145 



trees are disappointed in the size and beauty of the 

 fruit which their visions had pictured, and these 

 visions, too generally aided by the overdrawn plates 

 exhibited at the time the sale was effected. The 

 question was frequently asked, "Why don't you 

 raise and sell the large blue or purple plums such 

 as we used to have at home ?' ' We are also told 

 "Those plums we got of you are wild ones; I have 

 much better growing along the creek." 



The above not only explains why these Gage 

 plums are not handled, but there is another consid- 

 eration; in quality and productiveness we have at 

 least quite a few natives that are superior to the 

 best of the foreign sorts, not only for eating from 

 the hand, but will compare favorably lor can- 

 ning. 



When we go to look for the "better ones growing 

 along the creek," we don't find them. It is not 

 impossible that some one may have them, as all the 

 domesticated ones of this class have at one time 

 been wild, or the product of a plum stone. In most 

 cases they are chance seedltngs, found to have qual- 

 ities superior to other seedlings, when they are 

 named and propagated from, and are no more wild 

 than the Rhode Island Greening or Swaar. The 

 name is applied to them from their close resem- 

 blance to the wild ones. 



The plum does not succeed so well upon high 

 dry ground as in more moist places, hence we are 

 more apt to find it along the creeks and in the 

 cooler and rich moist grounds of the ravines; still 



