PLUMS RIPEN. 207 



survival of those families which possessed it, and the 

 constant dying-out of those families which delayed 

 their bloom till the may was out. 



With us, the sloes are small, hard, and very acrid ; 

 but in southern Europe and central Asia, where the 

 conditions are more favourable for the production of 

 large and juicy fruits, they become longer, sweeter, 

 pulpier, and less bitter ; the trees grow taller, with more 

 of a distinct trunk ; and, as a natural consequence, they 

 tend rather to lose the thorns, which are only service- 

 able to small straggling bushes, liable to be trodden 

 under foot by cattle, deer, or antelopes. It is this 

 southern variety that was first taken in hand by man as 

 a garden fruit ; for almost all our common cultivated 

 plants come to us, with the rest of our civilisation, from 

 the central Asian and Mediterranean region. The 

 little bullace now most nearly resembles the wild 

 southern stock, and it has been discovered and recog- 

 nised among the rubbish- heaps of the Swiss lake- 

 villages ; so that its cultivation is at least as old as the 

 later stone age, and probably far older, for it appears 

 even then as a distinctly cultivated and improved 

 variety. Still, these very ancient bullaces are consider- 

 ably smaller than the smallest garden plums of the 

 present day, as is always the case with fruits and seeds 

 found under similar circumstances. 



By dint of long selection our modern plum-trees 

 have lost their thorns, doubtless because the thorny 

 specimens were disagreeable to the pickers, so that any 

 stray thornless sport would be sure to obtain a prefer- 

 ence and be used as the chosen parent of future varieties. 

 To be sure, the gooseberry-bush has not yet lost its 

 prickles ; but then the gooseberry is a comparatively 



