THE WASHINGTON PLUM. 



WASHINGTON. Pomokgical Magazine, vol. i. pi. 16. 



BOLMAR'S WASHINGTON, Guide to the Orchard. 



BOLMAR, i 



NEW WASHINGTON, JHort. Soc. Catalogue, 3d Ed. 1842. 



FRANKLIN, 



SUPERIOR GAGE, 



SUPERIOR GREEN GAGE, [of some American collections. 



WASHINGTON BOLMAR, / 



THE Washington Plum is one of the most re- 

 markable varieties, and deservedly holds the highest 

 rank among the numerous sorts which have yet 

 been produced. Nearly equalling the Green Gage 

 in its abundant juice and luscious flavor, far sur- 

 passing it in size, and greatly excelling it in rich- 

 ness and beauty, it has, to a great extent, taken 

 the place of that old and superior plum. The tree 

 is also of the most vigorous habit among plums, 

 with a large, broad, glossy and luxuriant foliage, 

 quite unlike any previously known sort, and at once distinguishable 

 from all others. 



The history of the Washington is very generally known, though its 

 origin is involved in some obscurity. Mr. Floy, in the American edi- 

 tion of Lindley's Guide to the Orchard, states that it sprang from the 

 root of a grafted tree of the Green Gage, growing near the Bowery in 

 New York. This tree was destroyed by lightning below the graft ; a 

 few suckers came up from the root, and these were sold in the New 

 York market. Mr. Bolmar was the purchaser of two of them : this 

 was in 1814; and in 1818, when his trees came into bearing, he re- 

 quested Mr. Floy to call and see them; this he did, and the beauty of 

 their foliage, as well as the immense size of the fruit, surprised him. 

 Mr. Bolmar gave him buds, from which he propagated the variety, and 

 disseminated the trees from his nursery ; he also had a drawing made 

 of the fruit at that time. 



The late Wm. Prince also gives an account of it in the Pomological 

 Manual, (vol. ii. p. 53,) where he states that the variety was well 

 known around Flushing, about the year 1824, at which period there 

 were several trees of " the thickness of a man's thigh," and that it was 

 cultivated for a long time under the name of the Superior Gage. He 



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