68 Fruits and Fruit-Trees. 



When and where, as in the case of the crab-apple, the 

 improvement of the plum began, it is impossible to 

 determine. The ancient Greek writers speak of the 

 KOKKVfjrjXov* probably referring to the damson. They 

 also mention the /3pa/3vXov, but what the latter word 

 denoted is doubtful, seeing that Theocritus applies it 

 both to a palatable fruit in that pretty passage in the 

 seventh Idyll when the people are enjoying the harvest- 

 festival in the island of Cos, " all things breathing the 

 incense of fruit-season . . . pears . . . and apples . . . 

 and boughs weighed to the ground with plums," and 

 contrariwise, to one that would be quite the antithesis of 

 the apple "as much as the apple is sweeter than the 

 /3pd/3v\o/, so much have you gladdened me by your 

 return." In Roman literature the plum is frequently 

 referred to, now under the name of prunus, as in the 

 charming lines where Virgil describes the old Corycian 

 who, cultivating his little garden, " equalled, in his 

 contented mind, the wealth of kings,"! and when Ovid 

 narrates the story of Acis and Galatea. J The identifi- 

 cation of the name of the damson or damasin, properly 

 " damascene," with the famous Syrian city of Damascus, 

 we owe to Pliny. 



The development of the plum in England has corres- 

 ponded with that of the apple, though the varieties are 

 less numerous. France also has distinguished itself in 



* Literally the cuckoo-melon another interesting illustration of 

 the broad sense, anciently, of melon, 



tGeorgic iv. 125-146. J Met. xiii. 817. 



