258 GARDENING, 



best recommended are the Precoce of Tours, the 

 Early Damson of Provence, the Green Mirabelle of 

 Italy, the St. Catharine, the White Perdrigon, the 

 Imperatrice, and all the Gages, blue, violet, and 

 green. 



The St. Catharine, the white Perdigon, and the 

 gages, are propagated by seeds, the products of 

 which never fail to give plants differing in nothing 

 from the parent stem;* while the other varieties 

 can only be kept up by budding or grafting. f Where 

 trees are of more than four years' growth, the latter 

 of these operations is preferred ; and on all under 

 that age, the former is thought best. 



Argillaceous soils, neither habitually wet nor oc- 

 casionally inundated, and of medium quality, are 

 those which best agree with the plum-tree. Where, 

 from previous culture or accidental causes, the earth 

 has become either very rich or very poor, the tree 

 does not succeed. In the one case, its vigour is di- 

 rected only to the production of wood and foliage ; 

 and in the other, its growth is feeble and its life 

 short. In favourable climates it should always be 

 cultivated as a standard, and will then require only 

 a little annual labour about the roots, and the re- 

 moval from the head of dead or dying branches ; but 



* This is, at least, a doubtful conclusion. Plants, like ani- 

 mals of the same genus, will mix and produce new varieties, as 

 is amply proved by artificial fecundation ; and the gages, we be- 

 lieve, form no exception to the general law. We have, in sev- 

 eral instances, seen and tasted fruits, grown from the pits of the 

 gage ; but we have never seen in any of these fruits an exact 

 resemblance to the female parent. They have been of various 

 colours, shapes, size, , and flavour, although grown from pits 

 coming from the samcj tree, according, as we supposed, to the 

 character of the male parent. J. B. 



f The Muscle, the St. Julian, and the Cerisette, are varieties 

 raised from seeds or suckers, as stems on which to bud and graft 

 other plums, &c. With this exception, all other suckers should 

 be removed as soon as they appear. If you postpone this busi- 

 ness till winter, the wounds you then inflict will ensure you a 

 double crop in the spring. 



