The Fotheringham, or sheen plum, is a beautiful large red fruit, of considerable flavour ; " there is hardly any plum that excels it," says Forsyth : the tree answers equally well for a wall, or as an espalier or standard.
The Wine-sour is a plum said to be of Yorkshire ex traction ; it is not much cultivated, but seems deserving of attention ; it it very late, and chiefly used for pre serves.
La Royale is an excellent plum, of a red colour ; the tree, however is generally a dull bearer. The Roche-car bon, or red diaper plum, is large and of high flavour.
Coe's Golden Drop is a late ripening plum, the merits of which have within these few years been attended to, in con sequence of a recommendation by Mr Knight in the first volume of the Horticultural Transactions of London. This gentleman considers it as a new variety, while others allege that it has been known for many years. The tree is dis tinguished by the great size of its foliage, the leaves being often five inches long and three broad. The flesh of the fruit is of a golden colour when ripe ; on the side next the sun, the skin is dotted with violet and crimson. It is beautifully figured in Hooker's Pomona, t. 14; and is there announced as superior to any late plum at present in the British gardel.s. It keeps many weeks : Mr Knight mentions, that he suspended some of the ft uit by their stalks in a dry room in October, and that they remained perfectly sound till the middle of December, and were then rot inferior, either in richness or flavour, to the green gage, or the drap d'or. This variety requires a wall, but succeeds extremely well on a west aspect.
The Bullace-plum is the fruit -of a distinct species of Prunus, P. insititia, which grows naturally in hedges in England. It is often planted in shrubberies or lawns ; it is a great bearer, and the fruit is excellent for baking or preserving. There is a variety with wax-coloured fruit, called the White bullace. The Myrobalans, or cherry plum, is by some considered as only a variety of the com mon plum ; but others rank it as a distinct species : Will cieno• describes it under the title of P. cerasifera.
101. If the wall be high, or above ten feet, a plum tree is allowed about twenty-four feet in length ; if it he low, per haps thirty feet, horizontal training being in this case adopt ed. An east, south-east, or south-west aspect is found to be better than a full south exposure, in which last the fruit is apt to shrivel and become mealy. Several kinds bear well as espalier trees ; and many as standards. Even in some parts of the Highlands of Scotland, the yellow mag num and the green-gage trees may be seen thriving lux uriantly, and bearing excellent crops of fruit. The late
Mr Hunter of Blackness, a zealous Scottish horticulturist, describing the garden of Macdonald of Glenco, says, " The magnums were large, well shaped, free from gum, and of a rich yellow colour all over ; the gages of the true brown ish and green colour, and completely ripened ; and these were growing on standards, in the heart of Lochaber, where the snow on the tops of the hills was visible to us from the garden, on the 23d of September." (Scot Hort. Mem. i. 179.) It is to be observed, however, that in such situations, the blossom had probably not expanded till late in the spring, when the danger of frost was over. In the lower and milder parts of the country, plum blossom frequently requires protection as much as that of the apri cot or the peach ; indeed, the calyx drops sooner, and the blossom is in this respect more tender. In favourable sea sons, it may be added, plums are plentiful much farther north ; a degree at least.
Plums produce their fruit, partly on the former year's wood, but chiefly on small spurs, rising along the sides, and at the end of the branches, when of two years growth or upwards. These spurs continue long in a fruitful state. There is no necessity, therefore, for securing a supply of new shoots annually, as in peach and nectarine trees. During the summer, fore-right shoots are dis placed with the fingers, and side shoots are laid in hori zontally, or in a sloping direction, where there is room for them. Useless wood-buds proceeding from spurs are at the same time removed. In this way little winter prun ing is required ; only some extended spurs, and a few supernumerary shoots, are to be cleared away. The cuts must always be clean, and the knife sharp ; plum trees, like other stone fruits, being very apt to throw out gum and to canker. In regulating mismanaged trees, the lopping off of large branches is, however, sometimes practised ; if the air be excluded by some mild paint or other plaster, the wound frequently closes, and new branches set out, which bear fruit in two or three years. For wall plum trees, many gardeners prefer the fan mode of training; but some train in the horizontal manner, be ing of opinion that this is the best way to check luxuri ance of growth, and throw the trees into bearing. When the fruit come in close bunches, some are thinned out, in the beginning of July, when the stoning is over, to allow the rest to acquire full size ; and care is taken to lay in the young shoots close to the wall, so that the sun and air may not be intercepted, but may have access to ripen and give flavour to the fruit.