PLUM

the fruit of many species of Prunus (the genus which includes also the almond, apricot, cherry, and peach). Those cultivated here are roughly divisible their hybrids with American plums, and (3) native American. The Pacific slope and the northeastern states grow chiefly the European, with the Japanese second in favor. In the Central West, and many parts of the South, American fruits are dominant, with hardy Ru ian varieties added in the colder regions of the North, and the Japanese in central and southern parts. The European fruits (native to western Asia) include all the old-style plums and embrace a great diversity of quality, color, and size—the French prune, the big Yellow Egg, the purplish-red Lombard, the green-gages, the little damsons, ete. All of these have in California found conditions admirably suited to them and they are raised in enormous quantities. New York also is a heavy producer. The Japanese plums—i.e., Chinese varicties that have reached us via Japan—are yellow or reddish, generally large and firm, and inclined to be pointed. They are le flavory than the European and the best American, but very showy, productive, and long-keeping. The American fruits are chiefly cultures of the common wild plum, P. american a, found throughout the Hast and Central West, and are well adapted to regions where climatic conditions are too eold, or otherwise too severe, ‘for the European and Japanese. The wild fruit is vellow or reddish-vellow, varying in size but usually small, and generally hard and bitter in the Fast, though very good eating in the West. Among the numerous cultivated varieties of northern orchards are the De Soto (roundish, yellowish-red, and about 115 inches in diameter), and the Hawkeye, a little smaller, egg-shaped, and dull red. Next in importance in number and fully equal in quality of fruit, are the cultivated varieties of the Canada plum, P. wigra, wild throughout the northeastern and central. northern states and Canadian territory to the north. The wild fruit is generally oblong and orange red. The orchard varieties in elude the deep red Aitkin and the dark carmine and yellow Cheney. Of the numerous native plums growing chiefly in the Mid-Central and South. there are two species—the Hortulana (P. hortulana) and the Wild Goose (2, Juin soniana) —both of them red to yellowish and generally white-dotted—of which several named varieties are cultivated. Other well-known, but almost exclusively wild, species are the Chick a saw or: ‘snountain cherry,’’ and the Sand (both of P. an gust i folia) of the mid-central and southern states; and the Beach, or ‘shore ’’ plum of the Atlantie coastline, its range extending south to Virginia. The wild Chick a saw and Sand plums are cherry-like, with red or yellow and vellow-dotted skin, and soft, juicy, frequently subacid, flesh. Good specimens of the Chick a saw especially the cultivated forms where obtainable—are preferred by many people as a de ert fruit to the sweeter Icuropean and Japanese plums. The Beach plum is about one-half inch in diameter, flattened-roundish, and generally a deep dull purple —also red and yellow in some forms—and covered with a heavy bloom when vipe. The flesh is brittle and (usually) sweet and juicy, but the thick, tough skin is sometimes so acrid as to spoil the fruit for eating raw. It makes excellent preserves and jellies. See also DamMson, GrEEN-GacES, and PRuNEs.