60 OUR COMMON FBTJITS. 



time new kinds still appear. The Black Apricot, a very 

 dark kind, but more curious than excellent, is believed to 

 have arisen from the fecundation of an Apricot-tree with 

 the pollen of the Myrobalanus, or Cherry Plum, which, 

 in buds, leaves, and blossoms, greatly resembles the former 

 tree ; and, indeed, as Loudon observes, " there can be no 

 doubt but that an endless number of hybrids, varying in 

 their leaves, blossoms, and fruits, might be produced by 

 fecundating the blossom of the plum with the pollen of 

 the Almond, Peach, Apricot, and Cherry ; and though 

 some may be disposed to assign little value to these kinds 

 of productions, yet it must not be forgotten that almost 

 all the cultivated plants of most value to man have been 

 produced by some kind of artificial process. Experiments 

 of this kind, therefore, ought never to be discouraged. 

 What culture has done we know, but what it may yet 

 accomplish is concealed in the womb of time." 



The plum appears always to have existed in France, 

 but, unlike the Cherry, it is a tree not of the forest, but 

 of the field ; and Du Hamel disputes the paternity of the 

 Sloe as contrary to analogy, considering that such of the 

 domestic kinds as have not been imported from abroad 

 are more likely to have originated from the black or white 

 Damask Plum,* or from the Cerisette, all of which are 

 indigenous to that country, than from the one which we 

 admit as the type of the race. The two former are rather 

 larger and rounder than our Damson, and of a sweeter 

 but more insipid taste ; and the latter, being small, nearly 

 round, and of a pale violet red, bears a strong resemblance 

 to a Cherry, in which respect, however, it is surpassed by 

 the Canadian Plum, brought from Canada to France in 

 1750, and which has yellow flesh and a fiery red skin, 

 quite free from bloom, thus forming as decided a link 

 between the plum and the Cherry as the downy-coated 

 Apricot does between the plum and the Peach, the dru- 

 paceous fruits being thus all specially bound in a common 

 bond of brotherhood. 



* The title Damas, or Damask, is Riven by the French to plums which 

 split easily, and the flesh of which separates freely from the stone. 



