GENERAL HAND. 



Synonyms Miller. 



/. r, .. ( Longitudinal diameter. 2i 3 g inches. 

 Size of Fruit- j Tra sverse diiimet er, 2i inches. 



Form Roundish-oblong or truncated, oval. 



Skin Greenish yellow, broadly striped and marbled longitudinally with yellowish 



green, suture distinct, extending beyond the apex. 



Stalk I inch long 12 thick, often curved, inserted in a wide shallow cavity. 

 Stone 1 inch long, I wide, i thick, rough, minute excavations, deep groove from 



base to apex on one edge, free, sometimes partially adherent at the edges. 

 Flesh Yellowish, somewhat coarse, moderately juicy. 

 Flavor Mild and pleasant. 

 Quality" Good." 

 Maturity Last of August. 

 Leaf- 3i inches wide by 51 long. 

 Wood Young shoots greyish green, pointed buds, old wood grey in longitudinal 



stripes. 



HISTORY, ETC. 



The General Hand Plum is believed to be a native of Pennsylvania. Dr. Eli Parry, of Lancaster, 

 Pennsylvania, has published in the 1st Vol. of the Pennsylvania Farm Journal, the following historical 

 notice of this variety. "As my object in this communication is to endeavor to establish beyond a 

 doubt, that the plum called the General Hand Plum, first received that name in the County of Lancas- 

 ter, and not in Maryland. I called on Mrs. Brien, of our city, a daughter of the late Gen. Edward 

 Hand, from whom I learned that he took great pains in, collecting and cultivating choice fruit trees. 

 She remembers his planting a number of small plum trees, but she cannot tell wheie he got them. 

 Plums were very rare in this vicinity at that time. She also suggested that I might learn something 

 further relative to the matter, by calling on Mr. Benedict, an aged and respectable citizen of our place, 

 who informed me that in the autumn of 1791, he assisted in plastering the mansion house of the late 

 General Hand, on the Conestogo, about one mile south-east of Lancaster; and he remembers that the 

 plum trees were planted before that time ; but that they were still quite small, and had not borne any 

 fruit he said that George \Vein procured some grafts from the tree on General Hand's place, and gave 

 Mr. George Miller, the present clerk of the Lancaster market, some of them. I called on Mr. Miller 

 and ho told me that in 1810 or 1811, Mr. George \\ r ein procured about a dozen grafts from General 

 Hand, (who was always very liberal to his neighbours in such matters,) and gave him two of them at 

 his request; one, a young shoot, the other a year old piece with one lateral bud on it and that one 

 grew, but threw out no lateral branches that seu.son Mr. Wein was not so fortunate none of his grew; 

 and the following spring he applied to Mr. Miller for grafts, which he declined, giving as a reason the 

 fact, that he could not cut off any grafts without spoiling his tree. During the second summer, there 

 had been some lateral branches thrown out, and Mr. Miller furnished Mr. Wein with a few of them; 

 but he was equally unfortunate in his second attempt to propagate them. That summer the parent tree 

 died to the ground, so that in 1812 or 1813, we find all that beautiful variety of fruit concentrated in 

 one little stalk, grown from the lateral bud on one of the grafts given to Mr. George Miller by Mr. 

 Wein. From that circumstance, they were for a time called the " Miller Plum," until Mr. Miller ob- 

 jected to that name, and said that it was General Hand's Plum. From that time to the present they 

 have been so called. Some years afterwards, Mr. Emanuel Carpenter procured some cuttings from Mr. 

 Miller, and succeeded in propagating them, and as he told me, sent them to his brother in Ohio, to Mr. 

 Sinclair, in Baltimore, and others. Thus it appears to me that some pomologists have improperly given 

 Baltimore the credit of the nativity of this superb plum, which properly belongs to Lancaster County, 

 Pennsylvania. 



