350 THE PLUM. 



All the cliestnuts are very easily cultivated in any good, light 

 soil, and may be propagated by grafting, and by sowing the 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE PLUM. 



Prunus domestica, L. Bosacece, of botanists. 

 Prunier, of the French ; Pflaumenbaum, German ; Prugno, Italian ; Ci- 

 ruelo, Spanish. 



The original parent of most of the cultivated plums of our 

 gardens is a native of Asia and the southern parts of Europe, but 

 it has become naturalized in this country, and in many parts of 

 it is produced in the greatest abundance.* That the soil and 

 climate of the middle states are admirably suited to this fruit is 

 sufficiently proved by the almost spontaneous production of such 

 varieties as the Washington, Jefferson, Lawrence's Favourite, etc. ; 

 sorts which equal or surpass in beauty or flavour the most cele- 

 brated plums of France or England. 



Uses. The finer kinds of plums are beautiful dessert fruits, of 

 rich and luscious flavour. They are not, perhaps, so entirely 



* There are three species of wild plum indigenous to this country — of 

 tolerable flavour, but seldom cultivated in our gardens. They are the fol- 

 lowing. 



I. The Chickasaw Plu^l (Prunus Chicasa, Michaux.) Fruit about 

 three fourths of an inch in diameter, round, and red or yellowish red, of a 

 pleasant, sub-acid flavour, ripens pretty early. Skin thin. The branches 

 are thorny, the head rather bushy, with narrow lanceolate, serrulate leaves, 

 looking at a little distance somewhat like those of a peach tree. It usually 

 grows about 12 or 14 feet high, but on the Prairies of Arkansas it is only 

 3 or 4 feet high, and in this form it is also common in Texas. The Dwarf 

 Texas Plum described by Kenrick is only this species. It is quite orna- 

 mental. 



IL Wild Red or Yellow* Plum (P. americana, Marsliall.) Fruit 

 roundish, oval, skin thick, reddish orange, with a juicy, yellow, sub-acid 

 pulp. The leaves are ovate, coarsely serrate, and the old branches rough 

 and somewhat thorny. Grows in hedges, and by the banks of streams, 

 from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Tree from 10 to 15 feet high. Fruit 

 ripens in July and August. 



III. The Beach Plum, or Sand Plum. (P. maritima, Wang.) A low 

 shrub, with stout straggling branches, found mostly on the sandy sea-coast, 

 from Massachusetts to Virginia, and seldom ripening well elsewhere. 

 Fruit roundish, scarcely an inch in diameter, red or purple, covered with 

 a bloom ; pleasant, but somewhat astringent. Leaves oval, finely serrate. 



