HECTAMME PLEM. 
tlie introduction to this counti7, from 
tlic continent, of many superior vaiieties, the 
Eum has become a more general object of 
cultivation. In the dessert, however, it has 
been less esteemed than it deserves ; not from 
any inferiority, as regards its luscious and 
agreeable chai’acter, but from a prevailing prejudice that it is 
less wholesome than other garden finits. This opinion, without 
doubt, is of long standing ; a tradition descended from those 
days when Plums of the most ordinarj' quality only were gener- 
ally known. But we may be told that disease jirevails, even now, 
when this fruit becomes ripe. It is tme, that ordinary and un- 
ripe frait, of any description, cannot be considered wholesome ; 
but it is not to this in particular that we owe the existence of 
disease, at a particular season ; but to an epidemic, prevalent at 
the end of summer, and experienced alike by those who have 
not, as well as those who have, partaken of the fmits of the sea- 
son. We believe that well-ripened Plums, of such varieties as 
