262 
The Garden Magazine, June, 1920 
entlv confined to the southwestern provinces and to the Crimea. 
It is less hardy than the Sour Cherry, suckers little from the 
roots; and to the fact that birds favour its fruit it owes its specific 
name. 
The Sour or Pie Cherry, from which the Kentish Cherries and 
Alorellos have been derived, is native of southeastern Europe, 
Asia Minor, and the Caucasus. It is naturalized in the colder 
states of this country and over a great part of Europe. A 
variety (marasea) native of Dalmatia is worthy of mention as 
the source of the distilled 
liqueur Maraschino, much 
used in Europe and else- 
where in the preparation of 
Maraschino Cherries. 
This wasoneof the first fruit 
trees planted in this country, 
having been brought to New 
England by the earliest set- 
tlers. Francis Higginson, writ- 
ing in 1629, states that the 
Red Kentish was the only 
Cherry cultivated in Massa- 
chusetts; but as early as 1641 
Cherry trees were on sale in 
a nursery in Massachusetts. 
John Josselyn, who made voy- 
ages to New England in 1638, 
1639, and 1663, writing of 
“New England Rarities Dis- 
covered” says, "It was not 
long before 1 left the Coun- 
try that I made Cherry 
Wine, and so may others 
for there are a good store of them both red and black. Their 
fruit trees are subject to two diseases, the Meazels, which is 
when they are burned and scorched with the sun, and lowsi- 
ness, when the woodpeckers jab holes in their bark; the way 
to cure them when they are lowsie is to bore a hole in the main 
root with an augur, and pour in a quantity of Brandie or Rhum 
and then stop it up with a pin made of the same tree.” 
T H E Cherries of China are the product of Prunus pseudocerasus, 
a small tree, wild in the woods of the province of Hupeh, cen- 
tral China. It is not very hardy but is cultivated over a con- 
siderable area in China, and also in the warmer parts of Korea 
and south Manchuria. Formerly it was much grown in Japan 
but its place has been taken by European Cherries. It has not 
proved hardy in the Arnold Arboretum but has fruited in Chico, 
California. 
Much more valuable is the Bush Cherry (P. tomentosa) a 
common wild shrub in central and western China and much 
cultivated in northern China, Manchuria, and Korea. It is 
very hardy and will thrive in the coldest parts of the United 
States. It has short-stalked, globose, scarlet fruit, very juicy 
and pleasantly acid. The plant seldom exceeds 6 feet in height 
and as much in diameter. The Sand Cherry (P. pumila) of 
eastern North America and its western relative (P. Besseyi) have 
received a little attention from fruit breeders during recent 
years, and may ultimately prove of some value. 
T HE consensus of opinion is that our common Plums have 
been evolved by long cultivation from two Eurasian species, 
Prunus insititia and P. domestica. To the first named belong the 
Damsons, Bullace, Mirabelle, and St. Julien Plums. The second is 
the more important of the two, and here belong the Green Gages 
(Reine Claude Plums), the Prunes, the Perdrigon, the Yellow 
Egg, the Imperatrice, and the Lombard Plums. The Insititia 
Plum was mentioned by the old Greek poets Archilochus and 
Hippona in the 6th century B. C. and has been cultivated from 
the earliest times. Nowadays it grows wild in all the temperate 
parts of Europe and in western Asia to the Caspian region. 
The Damsons derive their name from the old city of Damascus. 
Old works on pomology state that Alexander the Great brought 
these Plums from the Orient after his expedition of conquest 
and that some centuries later Pompey, returning from his inva- 
sion of the near East, brought Plums to the Roman Empire. 
It may be assumed with reasonable probability that the Syrians 
and Persians were the first to cultivate them. 
The Domestica Plums were apparently first known and culti- 
vated in the transcaspian region and did not reach Europe 
until after the dawn of the 
Christian era. Pliny is the 
first to give a clear account of 
these and he speaks of them 
as a new introduction from 
Asia Minor. The Prune 
group of the Domestica 
Plums are very rich in sugar, 
which enables them to be pre- 
served by drying without re- 
moving the stone. They prob- 
ably originated in Turkestan 
in early times, and were 
brought to Europe by the 
Huns and became established 
in Hungary where, in the 16th 
century, they were an impor- 
tant trading commodity. 
When and where the Reine 
Claude Plums originated no- 
body knows. The first were 
introduced to France about 
the end of the 13th century. 
And their name commemo- 
rates Queen Claude, wife of Francis 1 . The English synonym, 
Green Gage, is for the Gage family who procured trees from the 
Chartreuse Monastery in Paris early in the 17th century. The 
Perdrigon Plums are an old group and take their name from an 
ancient geographical division of Italy. Of the Egg Plums the Im- 
perial or Red Magnum Bonum was known in England in 1629 
and the Yellow Egg is described by Rea in 1676. Parkinson in 
1629 describes half-a-dozen sorts of Imperatrice Plums, distin- 
guished by blue-black, bloomy fruits. Both Insititia and 
Domestica Plums were among the earliest fruits planted by the 
settlers in this country, but they have never attained the im- 
portance here that they hold in Europe. Finally, there is one 
more, the Myrobalan Plum — P. cerasifera — native of Trans- 
Caucasia, northern Persia and Turkestan. It is a hardy, hand- 
some tree, but its fruit is much inferior to that of the two already 
mentioned, so it is but little grown. 
The Plum cultivated in the temperate parts of eastern Asia 
is Prunus salicina, better known as P. triflora, or in the vernacu- 
lar, the Japanese Plum. It is indigenous in central China where 
I have found it to be fairly common, but is unknown in a wild 
state from any other region. Curiously enough, it is the only 
true Plum known from all that vast region. In China it has 
been cultivated from time immemorial, and there are varieties 
in quantity, some with greenish, others with yellow, red or 
bloomy-black fruits. From China it has been taken to south 
Manchuria, Korea and Japan, where to-day it is extensively 
cultivated. 
It was introduced to this country from Japan about 1870 by 
a Mr. Hough of Bacaville, California, through the United States 
Consul to Japan at that time, Mr. Bridges. The first ripe fruit 
of these East Asiatic Plums was produced in the grounds of Mr. 
John Kelsey, Berkeley, California, in 1876. So impressed with 
their value was Mr. Kelsey that he urged upon others to take 
them up, and this resulted in their propagation being under- 
taken on a large scale by Messrs. W. P. Hammon & Co., Oak- 
land, California, about 1883. To-day about one hundred 
varieties of this Japanese Plum are grown in this country. 
A hybrid between a cultivated form of the East Asiatic Plum 
HERE EAST MEETS WEST AND THE TWAIN ARE ONE 
Lusty and disease resistant are the hybrids between the Chinese Sand Pear and 
the European variety, of which the Kreffer, valuable for canning, is typical 
