26o THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 



The fruit of King Damson runs large for a Damson and the flavor 

 is agreeable, so agreeable that the variety is really a very good dessert 

 fruit late in the season. This Damson is little grown in America and deserves 

 much wider cultivation. A peculiarity of the plum is that there is always 

 more or less doubling of the petals. Very little is known regarding the 

 history of this excellent variety, but it seems probable that it originated 

 in Kent, England, where it is much grown. 



Tree small, lacking in vigor, upright-spreading, dense-topped, usually productive; 

 branchlets slender, pubescent; leaves folded upward, oval or slightly obovate, one 

 inch wide, two and three-quarters inches long; margin serrate, usually with small dark 

 glands; petiole with one or two glands on the stalk; blooming season intermediate, 

 short; flowers appearing after the leaves, usually with more than five petals, one inch 

 across, white with a yellow tinge at the apex; borne on lateral spurs or from lateral 

 buds, singly or in pairs. 



Fruit late, season long; one and one-eighth inches by seven-eighths inch in size, 

 oval, slightly necked, black, with thick bloom; flesh greenish-yellow, juicy, firm, sprightly 

 becoming sweet late in the season; of good quality; stone clinging, five-eighths inch 

 by three-eighths inch in size, irregular-ovate, slightly necked. 



KIRKE 



Prunus domestica 



I. Pom. Mag. 3:111, PI. 1830. 2. Lond. Hort. Soc. Cat. 149. 1831. 3. Kenrick Am. Orch. 

 263. 1832. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am.. 306. 1845. 5. Floy-Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 281, 382. 

 1846. 6. Mag. Hort. 15:488 fig. 43. 1849. 7. Thompson Gard. Ass't 518, PI. i. 1859. 8. Mas 

 Le Verger 6:15, fig. 8. 1866-73. 9- •^''*- Pom. Soc. Cat. 36. 1875. 10. Pom.. France 7:No. 26. 

 1871. II. Flor. & Pom. 47. 1876. 12. Oberdieck Deut. Obst. Sort. 430. 1881. 13. Lauche 

 Deut. Pom. 16, PI. IV. 1882. 14. Hogg Fruit Man. 708. 1884. 15. Guide Prat. 154, 358. 1895. 

 16. Gard. Chron. 24:19. 1898. 17. Gaucher Pom. Prak. Obst. No. 96, Col. PI. 1894. 18. Rev. 

 Hort. 500. 1898. 19. Soc. Nat. Hort. France Pom. 536. 1904. 



De Kirke 15. Kirke's 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 14, 17. Kirke's 8, 10, 15, 17. Kirke's Pflaume 12, 13. 

 Kirke's Pflaume 8, 10, 15, 17. Kirke's Plum i, 5, 8, 10, 11, 16, 18. Kirk's Plum 3, 5. Kirke 17. 

 Kirke's Plum, 15, 17, 19. Prune de Klirke 18. Prune de Kirke 8, 10, 17. Prune Kirke 19. 



All English descriptions of this variety rank it very high both as a 

 dessert and a culinary plum. The variety stands well among the purple 

 plums growing on the grounds of this Station, but since it has been grown 

 in America eighty years, attaining a reputation only of being mediocre 

 in most characters, it is probably not worth planting largely. It has many 

 more worthy competitors in its class and season. Hogg, in the reference 

 given, says the variety was introduced by Joseph Kirke, a nurseryman 

 at Brompton, near London, who, he says, " told me he first saw it on a 

 fruit stall near the Royal Exchange, and that he afterwards found the 



