THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 139 



To begin with, it has a high percentage of sugars and solids so that the 

 plum cures readily into a firm, sweet, long-keeping prune which in cooking 

 needs comparatively little sugar; again, the trees bear regularly, abund- 

 antly and the plums are uniform in size, productiveness, regular bearing 

 and uniformity of size of fruit being necessary attributes of a good prune- 

 making plum; lastly, it hangs well on the tree as it ripens and afterwards 

 so that the curing really begins on the tree. Besides making most excellent 

 prunes, the Agen is a very good dessert plum one of the best and ought 

 to be in every home orchard and, where it attains sufficient size, in every 

 commercial plantation. Lack of size is the defect in this variety which has 

 kept it from being more largely grown outside of prune -making regions. 

 If by pruning, thinning and other cultural treatment the size of the plums 

 could be increased, the Agen should prove a valuable commercial fruit 

 in New York. 



The name of this variety is derived from Agen, a region in France 

 where it is extensively grown. Tradition says that on their return from 

 the Crusades, the Benedictine monks brought with them from Turkey or 

 Persia what was then known as the Date plum and planted it in the garden 

 of their abbey on the River Lot, in the vicinity of Bordeaux, France, and 

 that afterwards this became the Agen. Its first recorded importation into 

 the United States was made in 1854 by the United States Patent Office, 

 though it was described by Prince as early as 1832. The most important 

 introduction was made, however, in 1856, when Louis Pellier of San Jose, 

 California, introduced Agen on the Pacific Coast, where it soon became 

 and still is the leading plum, though with curious persistency the fruit- 

 growers there call it the " French Prune "and the " Petite Prune." In 

 1862 this variety was added to the fruit catalog list of the American 

 Pomological Society. There are many strains of Agen in America, due 

 to the numerous importations of grafts from various parts of France, where 

 the plum orchards are frequently grown from seedlings or from sprouts; 

 some of these strains are worthy of varietal recognition. 



Tree of medium size, upright-spreading, dense-topped, hardy, very productive; 

 branches ash-gray, smooth, with numerous, large, raised lenticels; branchlets slender, 

 short, with short internodes, greenish-red changing to dark brownish-drab, dull, pubes- 

 cent, with small lenticels; leaf-buds of medium size and length, conical, free. 



Leaves folded upward, obovate or oval, one and three-quarters inches wide, three 

 and one-quarter inches long, velvety; upper surface with few fine hairs and a narrow, 

 grooved midrib; lower surface pale green, thickly pubescent; apex abruptly pointed, 



