Mother's voice gives the final summons, and the children gather at the wagon, tired but regretful for the filled husks that they must leave behind on the hazel bushes. A loaded branch of the grapevine is cut off bodily, and lifted into the wagon. The team is hitched on, and the happy passengers in the wagon turn their faces homeward.
Such was the poetry of pioneer life. Pleasures were simple, 324primitive, hearty—like the work—closely interlinked with the fight against starvation. There was nothing dull or uninteresting about either. The plums and grapes were sweetened with molasses made from sorghum cane. Each farmer grew a little strip, and one of them had a mill to which everyone hauled his cane to be ground "on the shares." Who will say that this "long sweet'nin'" was poor stuff, that the quality of the spiced grapes suffered for lack of sugar, or that any modern preserves have a more excellent flavour than those of the old days made out of the wild plums gathered in the woods? And this is also true: There is no more exhilarating holiday conceivable than those half days when mother took the children and "went a-plummin'." The Canada Plum (Prunus nigra, Ait.), which grows from Newfoundland to Manitoba, and extends its range into the northern tier of states, is called by Professor Waugh a variety, nigra, of our common wild plum, instead of a separate species, as the earlier authorities have set it down. The tree has a narrow head, formed of stiff, angular branches. The leaves are broad and large, with abruptly sharpened points. Flowers and fruit are larger than in the common plum; the petals turn pink before they fall. It is valuable to the North, furnishing the settler a relish for his hard fare until his orchard comes into bearing. It forms an excellent stock on which to graft cions of species which are not hardy on their own roots through long Northern winters. It is a tree well worth planting about one's premises, as in some bare fence corner that needs brightening in early summer, and in August and September when the bright orange coloured fruit shows its colour against the leafy background.
In winter the framework of the tree is picturesque by the angu larity of its thorny twigs.
The Chickasaw Plum (Prunus angustifolia, Marsh.) is the wild plum of the South. Its narrow leaves are shiny and strangely trough-like, instead of flat. The small, round fruit is soft and sweet, more like a cherry than a plum. One often sees it planted near houses, and the crop in the woods is marketed by the Negroes. It is unexcelled for jellies and preserves.
The Wild-goose Plum (Prunus hortulana, Bailey) is a natural hybrid between the species, Americana and angustifolsa. It is supposed to have originated in Kentucky. It grows wild from Maryland to Texas—a tall, straight-limbed, thornless tree, with thin, oblong, flat leaves, and thick-skinned, juicy fruit. It is a better fruit tree than either of its parents, and has given rise to several varieties of garden plums of which the Miner and the Wayland are familiar types. The Miner group are commonly seen in Northern orchards; the Waylands in the South.
The little beach plum of the Atlantic coast, the sloes of the Alleghanies and the South, the leathery-leaved Pacific plum, and the sand plum of the semi-arid plains are all distinct species. There is scarcely a region of the country that has not its own wild plum; and each species shows a tendency to improve under cultivation.
The Alleghany Sloe (Prunus Alleghaniensis, Port.) is a black-fruited little wild plum found growing on the slopes of the mountains of this name wherever the soil is wet enough. The abundant fruit is gathered in fall to make preserves and jellies, and is often seen in local markets.
The Black Sloe (P. umbellata, Ell.) is highly esteemed for the same purposes farther south. It follows the coast from South Carolina to Mosquito Inlet, Florida, and from Tampa Bay into Louisiana, thence north into Arkansas.