THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 23 



1763, the plum was one of the fruits cultivated. It is not probable, how- 

 ever, that the culture of this fruit was ever extensive in Florida as it does 

 not thrive there. 



William Bartram, son of John Bartram the founder of the Bartram 

 Botanic Garden, set out on a botanical expedition through the Southern 

 States in 1773, which lasted five years. He records ' numerous observa- 

 tions on the horticulture of both the colonists and the Indians. At Savan- 

 nah, Georgia, he found gardens furnished with all the cultivated fruit 

 trees and flowers in variety. One of the earliest settlements made by 

 the English in Georgia was Frederica, and here he found the peach, fig, 

 pomegranate and other trees and shrubs growing about the ruins ; though 

 not specifically mentioned, the plum had probably been planted here with 

 the other fruits. At the junction of the Coose and Tallapoosa rivers in Ala- 

 bama, there were thriving apple trees, which had been set by the French 

 at Pearl Island in the last named state. Between Mobile and New Orleans, 

 Bartram found peaches, figs, grapes, plums and other fruits growing to 

 a high degree of perfection and such also was the case on a plantation on 

 the Mississippi in Louisiana near Baton Rouge. 



These several references to plums show that this fruit was at least 

 tried in early colonial times, but it was not until after the establishment 

 of fruit-growing as an industry that any extensive plantings were made. 

 Pomology really began in America, though it languished for the first half- 

 century, at Flushing, Long Island, about 1730 with the establishment 

 of a commercial nursery by Robert Prince, first of four proprietors. Just 

 when this nursery, afterwards the famous Linnaean Botanic Garden, 

 began to offer plums cannot be said, but in 1767 one of their advertise- 

 ments shows that they were selling plum trees. As a possible indication 

 that the fruit was not highly esteemed at this period, an advertisement 

 of trees for sale from this nursery in the New York Mercury of March i4th, 

 1774, does not offer plums. But in 1794 the catalog of the nursery offers 

 plums in variety. Indeed, as we shall see, William Prince had at this 

 time taken hold of the propagation and improvement of the Domestica 

 plums with great earnestness. 



William Prince, third proprietor of the nursery founded by his grand- 

 father says in his Treatise' of Horticulture,* "that his father, about the 



as well, among the fruits grown there being the grape, peach, plum, fig, pomegranate, olive and 

 orange. Forbes, James Grant Sketches of the Floridas 91. 1821. 



1 Bartram, William Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, 

 etc. Dublin: 1793. 



3 Prince, William Treatise of Horticulture 24. 1828. 



