50 



PLUMS. 



of the true Green Gage. The fruit ripens during the latter 

 part of August ; the tree is of very thrifty growth and soon 

 attains to a large size ; the young shoots are much longer and 

 more slender than those of the Green Gage, and of a darker 

 red on the sunny side ; the buds are long, very pointed, and 

 lie almost close to the branch ; the shoulder is rather large ; 

 the leaves are of smaller size than those of the Green Gage, 

 and in fact the trees of these two varieties are so very dissimi- 

 lar in their general appearance as to render it almost impossi- 

 ble even for a casual observer to mistake them. This variety 

 has obtained place in some collections under the name of the 

 Red Diaper^ it having been disseminated from a nursery by 

 that title, without a due examination of its fruit. I have re- 

 cently received a new variety of this plum from the South of 

 France. 



PURPLE GAGE. Pr. cat. Pom. mag. 



T> ' ^1 J -ir' 1 ^ ? N. Duh. Bon. Jard. Nois man. 

 Reine Claude Violette, ^ ^ond. Hort. cat. 



Die Violette Konigen Claudie, Sickler, 



This fruit is almost round, and seventeen to eighteen lines 

 in diameter. It is esteemed in France to be one of the finest 

 varieties ; the tree is of strong and vigorous growth and seems 

 to flourish exceedingly in our climate. I copy the following 

 description from the Pomological Magazine : 



" A blue Gage plum has been long known and little 

 esteemed in our gardens : it is the Azure Hative of the French. 

 As the Reine Claude is the Green Gage of the English, it 

 might have been supposed that a Reine Claude Violette, 

 would have been the same as this Blue Gage ; such, however, 

 is not the fact : the fruit now figured under the name of the 

 Purple Gage, being a variety of very high quality, fully equal 

 to the Green Gage in all respects, and having this superiority, 

 that while the latter is apt to crack in wet summers, and will 

 never keep at all after having been gathered, this, on the con- 

 trary, will endure, if the climate be dry, through August and 

 September, even till October and is scarcely at all disposed to 

 crack. 



