LUTHER BURBANK 



"So a fair proportion of the best plums that 

 are sold in the eastern market are really prunes. 

 Yet, of course, they are called plums when sold 

 to be eaten fresh. 



"And this is proper enough, for every prune is 

 a plum, even though every plum is not a prune 

 by any manner of means." 



It is rather curious that this elementary bit of 

 botanical information should not be more widely 

 known. But my experience tells me that com- 

 paratively few persons living away from a prune 

 growing district realize that the fruit with which 

 they are so familiar in the dry state was neither 

 more nor less than a plum before it was dried. 



In point of fact a prune might be spoken of as 

 a plum educated and educated in a particular 

 way. 



In a sense all plums of the present day are 

 educated. Each one has been brought, by selec- 

 tion, in the course of centuries to a point where 

 it is a highly edible fruit. My famous quartet of 

 developed plums, named in the preceding chapter, 

 are assuredly educated in a high degree. Each 

 of them is large in size, attractive in color, de- 

 licious in flavor, and of such firm quality of flesh 

 as to bear shipping to distant markets. 



Yet no one of them has the particular kind of 

 education that is absolutely essential for a prune. 



[80] 



