30 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



The Prunes. In western America plum-growers usually speak of any 

 plum that can be cured, without removing the pit, into a firm, long-keeping 

 product as a prune. Such a classification throws all plums with a large 

 percentage of solids, especially of sugar, into this group. But in Europe 

 the term is used to designate a distinct pomological group. 1 Since we 

 have a number of varieties of plums long known as prunes and to which 

 no other term can be nearly so well applied, it seems wise to follow the 

 established European custom of using the term as a group name as well 

 as for a commercial product which is made for most part from these plums. 



The prune, as an article of commerce, all writers agree, originated 

 in Hungary in the Sixteenth Century and was at that time a very important 

 trading commodity with Germany, France and southern Europe. If, as 

 Koch surmises (see page 17), the prunes originated in Turkestan or 

 farther east and the statements of other botanists and writers tend to 

 show that his view is correct the spread of the varieties of this group 

 westward is readily explained. In the migrations of the Huns, from 

 western Asia to eastern Europe, in the first thousand years of the Christian 

 era, some Magyar or Hun intent on cultivating the soil brought with him 

 the prune-making plums which, finding a congenial home, became the 

 foundation of the prune industry of Hungary in the Sixteenth Century. 

 In subsequent commercial intercourse with western Europe the latter 

 region was enriched by these prune-making plums from Hungary. 



In America this group is now by far the most important one com- 

 mercially, though prunes were not introduced into this country until 

 comparatively recent years. The early lists of plums do not include any 

 of the prunes and even as late as 1806 McMahon only mentions in the 

 thirty varieties given by him but one, " the Prune Plum." William Prince 

 in 1828 speaks only of the "monstrous prune," * but in such a way as 

 to lead one to believe that neither it, nor any other prune, was then culti- 

 vated in America. 3 In 1831 William Robert Prince in his Pomological 



'These are the plums which Linnaeus called Prunus domestica galatensis (Sp. PI. 475. 1753); 

 Seringe, Prunus domestica pruneayliana (DC. Prodr. 2:533. 'Sas); and Borkhausen, Prunus oecono- 

 mica (Handb. Forstb. 2:1401. 1803). 



* Prince, William A Short Treatise on Horticulture 27. 1828. 



8 " Of the prune, or, as they are termed in German, ' Quetsche,' there are a number of varie- 

 ties, all which are of fine size, and considered as the best plums for drying as prunes; this is one of 

 the largest of the varieties; the principal characteristic of these plums is that the flesh is sweet 

 and agreeable when dried. I am informed that the ' Italian Prune ' ranks highest as a table fruit 

 when plucked from the tree. The process of drying prunes seems to be so very easy that I should 

 suppose it might be undertaken in this country with a certainty of success, and so as to totally 

 supersede the importation of that article." Ibid. 



