THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



59 



is likely, however, that these Indian orchards were more often the result 

 of seeds dropped about camping places and towns rather than regularly 

 planted orchards. It is not improbable that the wide distribution of this 

 species in the Mississippi Valley and the country about and beyond the 

 Great Lakes is due somewhat to the hand of the Indian, of the voyageur 

 and of the missionary of the French regime. 



The common names under which this plum passes in the states where 

 it is found as a wild fruit are indicative of the knowledge possessed of it 

 by the people. The Americana is nearly always the wild plum of eastern 

 America. It shares with several other species the names in various parts 

 of the country of Red Plum, Yellow Plum, the Horse and the Hog Plum. 

 In Iowa this is most often the " native plum; " in Indiana it is the Goose 

 plum; in Georgia, the August plum, while in the states bordering on the 

 Gulf it is often called the Sloe. 



The domestication of Americana plums is due to the fact that the 

 plums of Europe will not thrive in the Mississippi Valley, the prairie states, 

 nor, for the most part, in the South. The European species are tender 

 both to cold and heat in these regions and they are attacked by those 

 scourges of plum culture, black -knot, leaf-blight and curculio. If, then, 

 the people in the West and South were to have plums at hand when 

 wanted, the wild species had to be brought under cultivation. Where the 

 two will grow side by side it is doubtful if any would choose to grow the 

 Americanas in preference to the Europeans or even for the sake of variety. 



The Americana plum was introduced into European gardens at an early 

 date, for references to it are found in the pomological works of the Eighteenth 

 Century, Duhamel having described it in his great work on pomology in 

 1768, under the name Prumer de Virginie, and later Poiteau ' gives a 

 very good description of it under the name Prune de la Gallissioniere. Just 

 how much earlier than these dates it was taken to the Old World cannot 

 be said, but seeds of it are likely to have been taken there by some of the 

 returning explorers of early colonial times. The important fact is that 

 as a cultivated fruit it has made absolutely no headway in competition 

 in Europe with the plums of that continent though it is to be found not 

 infrequently as an ornamental. 



the adjoining farm of Mr. Henry Loomis descendants of these old trees still grow. The plums 

 are Americanas, and Mr. Loomis, now in his 94th year, says that when a boy the Indians and 

 Whites alike gathered them, soaked them in lye to remove the astringency of the skins and then 

 cooked, dried or otherwise preserved them. 

 'Poiteau i: (Unpaged). 1846. 



