240 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



plums in America. Even with these handicaps, it has maintained its popu- 

 larity for a century, is grown in all collections and shown in all exhibitions 

 of note. It is the largest of the Reine Claude plums, well molded, a golden- 

 yellow and when allowed to become fully ripe is most excellent in flavor 

 and pleasing in all the flesh attributes of a good dessert plum. It is not 

 as high in quality as some other of the Reine Claude plums, as, for example 

 the Washington, with which it is often compared, for it is a little coarser 

 in flesh and not as sprightly, but it is better than is commonly thought, 

 because it is seldom allowed to reach its best flavor by full maturity. The 

 trees on the Station grounds are all that could be asked for even in bearing ; 

 and elsewhere size, vigor and hardiness are usually satisfactory but pro- 

 ductiveness is a weak point. The amateur should always plant this variety 

 and it would seem as if it were more often worth planting in commercial 

 orchards. 



The history of this variety is well known. The original tree grew on 

 the place of General Hand, on the Conestoga River, about a mile from 

 Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and first fruited about 1790. Thirty years later 

 a Mr. Miller procured grafts and succeeded in growing them. The variety 

 was brought to the notice of fruit-growers by E. W. Carpenter, a nursery - 

 man of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who sent grafts to his brother, S. Carpenter, 

 of Lancaster, Ohio, and Robert Sinclair, Baltimore, Maryland. To the 

 latter the introduction of the Hand has been incorrectly attributed. In 

 1856, Hand was listed in the fruit catalog of the American Pomological 

 Society. 



Tree large, vigorous, spreading, dense-topped, hardy, variable in productiveness; 

 branches dark ash-gray, rough, with small lenticels; branchlets of medium thickness 

 and length, with long internodes, green changing to brownish-red, pubescent early in 

 the season, becoming less so at maturity, with few, inconspicuous, small lenticels; 

 leaf-buds large, long, obtuse, appressed; leaf-scars large. 



Leaves folded backward, obovate or oval, two and three-eighths inches wide, four 

 and one-half inches long; upper surface dark green, rugose, slightly hairy, with a 

 shallow, grooved midrib; lower surface pale green, pubescent; apex and base acute, 

 margin finely and doubly serrate; petiole three-quarters inch long, thickish, pubescent, 

 tinged red, with from one to four small, globose, greenish-brown glands on the stalk or 

 base of the leaf. 



Blooming season intermediate in time, short; flowers appearing after the leaves, 

 one and one-quarter inches across, white,; borne sparsely on lateral buds and spurs; 

 pedicels seven-eighths inch long, very pubescent, greenish; calyx-tube green, cam- 

 panulate, pubescent; calyx-lobes broad, obtuse, pubescent on both surfaces, glandular- 



