2 BULLETIlSr 179, V. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



for pasture have afforded favorable conditions for a considerable 

 increase in the number of individuals. In other localities the 

 abandonment of cultivated fields has afforded very similar oppor- 

 tunities, with a like result. In still other regions, areas are being 

 placed under cultivation, and by this or other means the number of 

 individuals is being decreased. The horticultural literature of the 

 Northwest contains so many references to the destruction of plum 

 thickets that it is probable that in that region at least the genus is 

 less abundant than when settlement began. The actual number of 

 species may also soon be lessened, since a few of them are extremely 

 local, and at least one of the latter, Prunus alleghaniensis, is laiown 

 recently to have disappeared in some of the localities where it for- 

 merly existed. 



VARIATION AND ADAPTABILITY. 



There is great variation withia the species ia the size and quality 

 of the fruit and apparently in the productiveness of individual trees. 

 Any systematic attempt to improve the native plums should begia 

 with a study of the species in the field in at least a portion of the 

 range of each. In this way forms may be secured which so far 

 surpass the usual quality of the species that they could otherwise be 

 obtained only after many years of selection in the orchard. Several 

 of the American species bear fruit that is distinctive in character 

 and that possesses quahties of value. Their hardiness and adapta- 

 bility to the regions in which they are native render some of them 

 indispensable if those regions in which the Old World species are not 

 successfully grown are to be supplied with home-grown fruit. Some 

 of these may eventually be so improved that they will even find a 

 place in localities where they will compete for dessert purposes with 

 varieties originating from Old World species. 



EARLY fflSTORY OF AMERICAN PLUMS. 



The history of American plums, so far as Europeans are concerned, 

 probably begins with the visit of John de Verrazano, a Florentine 

 voyager, who sailed from the vicinity of Madeha on January 17, 1524, 

 under orders from the French king, Francis I. He reached America 

 at about latitude 34° north, and proceeded northward along the coast 

 to latitude 50°, when he departed for France. The explorer's 

 account of his voyage is dated at Dieppe, July 8, 1524, and in his 

 enumeration of American products observed at about 41° north, or 

 the latitude of southern New York, he states (29, p. 362) i^ "We 

 found Pomi appii, damson trees, and nut trees." The voyagers 

 apparently nowhere went far inland, and the "damson trees" were 

 with little doubt Prunus maritima, since this is the only species in 



1 Reference is made by number to "Literature cited," p. 73. 



