50 OUR COMMON FRUITS. 



ket ball, but being of a very pleasant taste, is sought for 

 in Paris towards the end of September ; while the other 

 kinds, being no larger, less fleshy, and less agreeable in 

 flavour, are likely to be rather endured than enjoyed by 

 those who partake of them. 



CHAPTEE V. 

 THE PLUM. 



FROM the wave-hollowed cavern in the cliff to the 

 Cathedral of St. Peter's; from the wild gorilla of the 

 woods to the thorough English gentleman ; such are the 

 analogues that present themselves when we would think 

 of illustrations of progress equivalent to the stride from 

 the Sloe to the Greengage from Nature's thorny stunted 

 bush, with its puny leaves and harsh, insignificant, berry- 

 like produce, to Art's shapely tree, with broad ample 

 foliage and large luscious fruit, fair child of human care 

 and culture. Yet, the Adam of the race, the Sloe, with- 

 out which, if the theory of development be true, we 

 should have had no Greengage, claims the first attention 

 in a notice of this tribe, the first favourites of autumn, 

 whose fleshy drupes form so nicely graduated a link be- 

 tween the juicy berries of summer and those substantial 

 pomes which accompany us into winter. The plums, as 

 a family, are native to the greater part of Europe, and 

 some parts of Asia, Africa, and America ; but the only 

 member indigenous to England is the Sloe (the Prunus 

 spinosa, or Thorny Plum) , which is very commonly found 

 wild in our hedges, usually not farther north than Wales, 

 though, as it will endure a moister climate, it is some- 

 times found in Highland valleys, where the more fasti- 

 dious furze-bush refuses to grow. Grown in open parks 

 as a single tree, it may be reared to a height of even 30 ft., 

 but in hedges is rarely seen more than 20 ft. high ; in 



