280 FRUIT-GROWING 



grow with tender care are simply wild forms 

 that developed spontaneously in the woods. 



The European plums, the finest representa- 

 tives of this class of fruit, were not commonly 

 grown in America until long after the first 

 colonies were established. It is true that the 

 early French settlers in Canada made limited 

 plantings of them, but it was not until after 

 the American Revolution that they attracted 

 any particular attention from our own growers. 



Robert Prince, who established nurseries on 

 Long Island about 1730, was perhaps the first 

 to introduce European varieties to our shores, 

 long after orchards of peaches and apples and 

 vineyards of grapes had been yielding up 

 their life-blood to furnish conviviality to the 

 social gatherings of that early time. John 

 Bartram too, a botanist of Philadelphia, 

 imported European varieties at about the 

 time Prince was introducing the new fruit. 

 Bartram must have been an interesting old 

 chap, hobnobbing with the fruit-growers and 

 botanists of many countries, and always inter- 

 ested in anything new that he thought might 

 be of value to his own countrymen. 



Although they are the finest representa- 

 tives of their race, the European plums have 

 not had an altogether easy time of it in this 

 country for they are a prey for several insects 

 and diseases that are unknown in their native 



