129 



THE PURPLE GAGE PLUM. 



Reine Claude Violette. Duham. ed. nov. Bon Jard. Noi- 

 sette, Manuel Complet, p. 496. Hort. Soc. Fruit Cat. 

 no. 234. 



Die Violette Konigin Claudie. Sickkr Teutsch Obst. Gart. 

 vol. xxi. p. 64. t. 6. 



A blue Gage Plum has been long known and 

 little esteemed in our Gardens : it is the Azure 

 Hative of the French. As the Reine Claude is the 

 Green Gage of the English, it might have been sup- 

 posed that a Reine Claude Violette would have 

 been the same as this Blue Gage. Such, however, 

 is not the fact ; the fruit now figured under the 

 name of the Purple Gage being a variety of very 

 high quality, fully equal to the Green Gage in all 

 respects, and having this superiority, that while the 

 latter is apt to crack in wet summers, and will never 

 keep at all after having been gathered, this, on the 

 contrary, will endure, if the climate be dry, through 

 August and September, even till October, and is 

 scarcely at all disposed to crack. 



The origin of the variety is unknown ; it must, 

 however, be recent, as it is not mentioned by 

 Duhamel, or any of the older French writers, and 

 is even omitted by Noisette in his Jardin Fruitier. 



A good bearer as a standard, ripening in August 



VOL. III. K 



