The Persimon. 



several times much higher and bigger. The leaves are from 

 four to six inches long, of a beautiful green above, and of a 

 whitish blue on the underside. It bears a fruit, a sort of 

 plum about the size of our largest cherries, and bears it in 

 prodigious quantities. The fruit is of a pale red, in the 

 fall of the year, and when the frost has nipped it, it fre- 

 quently is eaten. 



456. The wood of this tree is very hard, strong and elastic. 

 MicHAux says that it is used at Baltimore, in the making 

 of large screws, and by tinmen for making their mallets. 

 It is employed to make the large wedges, which assist iron 

 wedges in the splitting of the trunks of trees ; for the 

 making of the shafts of chaises it stands before every other 

 sort of wood except the lance-wood of the West Indies. 

 So that, taking ornament and use together, this is a tree 

 very well worthy of our attention ; and as to the propaga- 

 tion of it, nothing can be more easy. 



457. The seed is easily obtained from almost any part of 

 the United States. Several seeds are contained in each of 

 the little sort of plums above described. They are as hard 

 as. a bit of pewter, and pliable like a little bit of pewter. 

 They ought to be sowed in the month of March or April, 

 in just the same manner as directed for the Ash. When 

 scattered on the seed-bed, which they may be very thickly, 

 they ought to be pressed down by the back of the spade to 

 settle them firmly in the ground, and then covered with 

 earth taken out of the alleys^ which earth ought to lie on 

 the beds a little more than an inch deep, and ought to be 

 made very fine in order to suffer the plants freely to come 

 up, which they will do very boldly, just in the manner of 

 a kidney-bean, about the middle of the month of May. 



