THE ROMANCE OF OUR TREES 



all have fruit useful for culinary purposes if not for 

 dessert and were so employed by the early settlers. 

 The Indians knew their value and utilized them. In 

 recent years different Agricultural Experimental 

 Stations have undertaken proper investigations with 

 promising results. By selection and hybridizing there 

 is much promise of future usefulness, and especially 

 for the Prairie states and those of the Mississippi 

 Valley where European Plums do not succeed. The 

 best known perhaps is Prunus americana which is 

 distributed from the Atlantic coast to the Rocky 

 Mountains. It was known in Europe before 1768 

 when it is mentioned by Duhamel under the name 

 "Prunier de Virginie" but has never become im- 

 portant there. Among the oldest known is Prunus 

 nigra, the Canada Plum, first described in 1 789, and 

 undoubtedly the dried plum which Jacques Cartier 

 saw in the canoes of Indians, in his first voyages of 

 discovery up the St. Lawrence in 1 534. These primi- 

 tive prunes were a staple article of diet among the 

 Indians in those early times, and it is possible that 

 they planted trees of this species about their habita- 

 tions. The comparatively recently recognized P. 

 hortulana and P. Munsoniana are perhaps the most 

 promising and valuable of American Plums, especially 

 for the more southern states of the Middle-West. 

 The Pacific Plum {P. suhcordata) is one of the staple 



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