38 THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



Species have never been kept separate by plum-growers, all being grouped 

 together as European plums. It is probable, however, that the Damson 

 plums of this species were earlier introduced and more generally grown 

 than any other of the European plums by the English settlers of America, 

 as the references to plum-growing before the Revolution are largely 

 to the Damsons. The reasons for this early preference for these plums 

 are that they come true to seed while most varieties of the Domestica do 

 not ; and trees and cions were not readily transportable in colonial times ; 

 and, too, the Damsons have always been favorite plums with the English. 



When the first American fruit books were published at the beginning 

 of the Nineteenth Century the Damsons and Bullaces were widely grown, 

 for all writers give a relatively large number of varieties of these plums 

 and speak well of them. Thus McMahon,' in his list of thirty plums gives 

 six that belong here, ending his list with "Common Damson, etc., " as 

 if there were still more than those he enumerates. Prince, in his Pomo- 

 logical Manual, in 1832, gives at least eighteen sorts that may be referred 

 to Insititia with the statement that one of them, the Early Damson " ap- 

 pears to have been brought to this country by the early Dutch settlers, 

 or by the French who settled here at the time of the revocation of the Edict 

 of Nantes," adding, "It is much disseminated throughout this section of 

 the country." At the end of the Eighteenth Century Deane's ' New 

 England Farmer or Georgical Dictionary, in a discussion of plums in general 

 says: " The most common plum in this country is the Damascene pltun, 

 an excellent fruit for preserving, which is said to have been brought from 

 Damasam, hence the name." 



The hardiness, thriftiness and productiveness of all of the varieties of 

 this species commend them to those who cannot give the care required 

 to grow the less easily grown Domesticas, and in America, as in Europe, 

 these plums are to be found in almost every orchard and in many com- 

 munities half -wild, thriving with little or no care. The fact that they are 

 easily propagated, growing readily from suckers and coming true to seed 

 is an added reason for their general distribution. 



The Insititia plums do not seem to hybridize freely with other species — 

 at least there are no recorded offspring of such hybrids, though Koch 

 believes the Reine Claudes to be a hybrid group between this species and 

 the Domesticas and there is much evidence in the fruit to show that the 



' McMahon, Bernard Gardener's Calendar 587. 1806. 

 'Samuel Deane, D.D. New England Farmer 265. 1797. 



