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PLUM. PRUNUS. 



Natural order, Pomace*. A genus of the Icosandria 

 Monogynia class. 



" The mealy plum 



Hangs purpling, or displays an amber hue." 



PLUMS are so numerous in their varieties, that to de- 

 scribe them separately would be endless; as not only 

 every country, but almost every district, has its peculiar 

 sorts of this fruit. 



The Grecians added to their native plums those of 

 Syria, Egypt, and Persia; and the Romans not only pos- 

 sessed themselves of the plums of all the known world, 

 but employed their ingenuity in making additional va- 

 rieties. Columella, in his tenth book, speaking of this 

 fruit, says 



" then are the wicker baskets cramm'd 



With Damask and Armenian, and wax plums. " s 



Pliny states, in his fifteenth book, chap. 13, that 

 there was a great variety of this fruit in Italy ; and it is 

 not long, says he, since the country about Grenada and 

 Andalusia began to graft plums upon apple stocks, which 

 were called apple plums ; others upon almond stocks, 

 which he calls a clever device, as it produced both fruits, 

 the stone being like the kernel of an almond. Those 

 grafted upon nut stocks, he states, retained the form of 

 the mother graft ; but they got the taste of the stock 

 wherein they were set. 



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