CROPS AND PROFITS 



many other luxuries, must be paid for in four- 

 fold its value. 



I would by no means undervalue the plum; 

 least of all, that prince or princess of plums, 

 Reine-Claude (Green-Gage), of which, in the 

 sunny towns along the Loire, I have purchased 

 a golden surfeit for a few sous : when I remem- 

 ber those, and their luscious and cheap per- 

 fection, crowning the peasants' gardens, I am 

 a little dishearted at thought of the tobacco 

 washes, and whale-oil soap and syringes, with 

 which we must enter into combat with the 

 curculio, for only a most flimsy supply. 



The nectarine is subject to the same blight ; 

 and the apricot furnishes only a very dismal 

 residuum of a crop. As an espalier, it is not, 

 I think, so subject to the ravages of the cur- 

 culio as in its unfettered condition; but upon 

 the wall (particularly if one of southern ex- 

 posure), it is exceedingly liable to injury from 

 the late frosts of Spring. I succeed in sav- 

 ing a few from all enemies every year; but 

 they are so wan — so pinched, as hardly to 

 serve for souvenir of the golden Moor-parks 

 which crown an August dinner at Vefour's, 

 or the Trois-Freres. It is an old fruit; the 

 Persians had it ; the Egyptians have gloried in 

 it these centuries past; Columella names it in 



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