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LIX. An Account of a New Variety of Plum, called the 

 Downton Imperatrice. In a Letter to the Secretary. By 

 Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq., F. R. S., $c. President. 



Read December 2, 1823. 



My dear Sir, 



X send you a few Plums of a new variety, which I have ob- 

 tained from seed in the present year, and which possesses 

 peculiar, and, I think, valuable properties. The period of 

 their maturity in the past autumn, upon a south-east wall, 

 was the latter end of September; but the greater part of the 

 crop remained upon the tree till the second week in Novem- 

 ber, without a single fruit having fallen off, or decayed; 

 though several have been slightly wounded by insects. At 

 that period, owing to some rather severe frosty nights having 

 occurred, they were brought into the house, where all remain 

 as perfect as the sample you receive. 



This variety sprang from a seed of the White Magnum 

 Bonum Plum, and the pollen of the Blue Imperatrice, from 

 which varieties I propagated on account of having previously 

 observed the fruit of the seedling offspring of the White 

 Magnum Bonum Plum to shrivel upon the trees, and dry, 

 without falling off; and I thence inferred the practicability 

 of obtaining, with the Pollen of the Imperatrice, a large and 

 late Plum with the firm flesh of the Imperatrice, and the 

 habits of the seedling offspring of the Magnum Bonum. I 

 anticipated a thick and tough skin, such as I had noticed in 



