The Plums and the Cherries 



from Maryland to Texas — a tall, straight-limbed, thornless tree, 

 with thin, oblong, flat leaves, and thick-skinned, juicy fruit. 

 It is a better fruit tree than either of its parents, and has given 

 rise to several varieties of garden plums of which the Miner and 

 the Wayland are familiar types. The Miner group are commonly 

 seen in Northern orchards; the Waylands in the South. 



The little beach plum of the Atlantic coast, the sloes of the 

 Alleghanies and the South, the leathery-leaved Pacific plum, and 

 the sand plum of the semi-arid plains are all distinct species. 

 There is scarcely a region of the country that has not its own 

 wild plum; and each species shows a tendency to improve under 

 cultivation. 



The Alleghany Sloe (Prunus Alleghaniensis, Port.) is a 

 black-fruited little wild plum found growing on the slopes of the 

 mountains of this name wherever the soil is wet enough. The 

 abundant fruit is gathered in fall to make preserves and jellies, 

 and is often seen in local markets. 



The Black Sloe (P. umhellata, Ell.) is highly esteemed for 

 the same purposes farther south. It follows the coast from 

 South Carolina to Mosquito Inlet, Florida, and from Tampa Bay 

 into Louisiana, thence north into Arkansas. 



Exotic Plums 



The old-fashioned New England garden with its fine plums — 

 damsons, green gages, and the like — points us back to the time 

 when the colonists came to the New World and brought the fruit 

 trees they had known in the Old. These common plums are 

 varieties of the woolly-twigged, thick-leaved European Prunus 

 domestica, and they still do well in the Northeastern States and on 

 the Pacific slope. 



The native plums, improved greatly in the past half century 

 have proved the best for the prairie states and for the South. 



Now a fine Japanese plum, Prunus iriflora, hardy, prolific 

 and generally immune from the black knot, a fungous disease 

 of native plums, gives promise of thriving in the South and in the 

 Middle West. Its fruit is large and handsome and keeps well, 

 though in quality it is not considered equal to the European 

 varieties. Crosses between the Japanese and the native American 

 plums promise well. Prune raising as an industry was old in 



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