THE BLACKTHORN. 



109 



man should not be without effect in mitigating the conse- 

 quences of that curse, the austere sloe has been converted 

 by human skill and labour into the luscious plum, one of 

 our most valued fruits. It is a well-known fact, that the 

 thorns of several fruit-trees, the Wild Pear for instance, 

 disappear under cul- 

 tivation ; the variety 

 of the Blackthorn 

 called the Bull ace- 

 tree, 1 is also entirely 

 destitute of thorns, 

 and produces edible 

 fruit ; while most of 

 the kinds of plums 

 cultivated in our gar- 

 dens are referred by 

 some eminent horti- 

 culturists 2 to the 

 same origin. Every 

 cultivator of Dahlias 

 or Verhenas must be 

 aware that it is im- 

 possible to assign 

 limits to the varia- 

 tions which these 

 plants will undergo when subjected to the skilful treatment 

 of the florist; and there is every reason, deduced both 

 from theory and practice, why the same rule should be 

 extended to fruit-trees. In the Horticultural Society's 

 Transactions, 274 distinct varieties of the plum actually in 

 cultivation are enumerated, a number sufficiently great to 

 admit of every possible gradation from the worthless sloe 

 to the delicious green-gage. All these are referred by 

 some horticulturists to another variety, Prunus domestica, 

 which, as its name would imply, is no longer found in a 



FRUIT AND FOLIAGE OF BULLACE-TUKE. 



1 Prunus insititia. 



2 Knight, London, &c. 



