' According to Lon. Hort. Soc. Cat. 1842. 



THE GREEN GAGE PLUM. 



Geeen Gage. Catalogue of London Horticultural Society, 1842. 



Brugnon Green Gage, 



Damas Vert, 



Dauphine, 



Drap d'Or, (of some,) 



Grosse Reine, 



Grosse Reine Claude, 



IsLEwoRTH Green Gage, 



Reine Claude, 



SucRiN Vert, 



Verte Bonne, 



Wilmot's Green Gage, 



Wilmot's New Green Gage, 



Wilmot's Late Green Gage, 



Reine Claude Dore', Album de Pomologie. 



Bru^n Sage, (erroneously) of some American Collections. 



The Green Gage has a world-wide reputation, and, by general con- 

 sent, has long been placed at the head of all plums ; to say that any new 

 variety nearly approaches, or equals it in quality, is sufficient to render 

 it a desirable acquisition. Many American seedlings have been pro- 

 duced since the Green Gage was first introduced, and though several of 

 them possess great merit, — greater in the aggregate than an equal 

 number of foreign sorts, — still, none of them, unless we except the 

 McLaughlin, can be considered equal to that old plum. The sweetness 

 of its flesh, the abundance of its juice, and the peculiar richness of its 

 flavor, exist in just those nice proportions, that they neither cloy, nor 

 leave the taste unsatisfied. 



The Green Gage is a very old variety. It first fruited in England, at 

 Twickenham, as long since as 1727. It was first introduced there by the 

 Earl of Stair, who sent it from France to the second Duke of Rutland, 

 by the name of Green Spanish. The name of Green Gage is said, by 

 Sir Joseph Banks, to have originated as follows : — " The Gage family 

 in the last century procured from the monks of the Chartreuse, at Paris, 

 a collection of fruit trees ; when they arrived in England the ticket of 

 the Reine Claude had been rubbed off on the passage. The gardener 

 being, from this circumstance, ignorant of its name, called it, when it 

 bore fruit, Green Gage." {Horticultural Transactions, vol. i., App. p. 8.) 

 In France it is universally known as the Reine Claude ; but in this in- 

 stance the name of Green Gage being the popular one everywhere in 

 England as well as in our own country, we have retained it here. 



Mr. George Lindley, in his Guide to the Orchard, (1830,) called it 

 " without exception the best plum in England." It still holds the same 



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