nurserymen, and no doubt will be further improved, which may lead to a valuable variety in the future.
The Oregon wild plum (Prunus subcordata), of which there are two or three varieties, was much valued in early times for its fruit to eat green, for preserves, and jam. This plum for quality is about the same as the native red plum of the Middle West, and has been improved by selection and cultivation; was used formerly by nurserymen for stock on which to graft the plum and prune. The tree grows to a height of ten or fifteen feet. Another variety produces a round fruit nearly an inch in diameter; another an oblong, resembling in shape, color, and quality the Damson, and by those who use them preferred to that variety. Of these something may be expected from hybridizing and cultivation.
We have two or more species of wild cherries; one, Cerasus demissa, a shrub or small tree bearing a purplish black fruit, very much resembling the choke cherry, though of much better quality and edible; is used to some extent in marmalade; its roots have been used as stock to work improved varieties upon. The other, Cerasus emarginati, sometimes attains to the dignity of a tree one foot in diameter and thirty to forty feet high, and bears a roundish, black cherry about one third of an inch in diameter, bitter and astringent.
The Oregon elder (Sambucus glauca) is a unique tree of unsurpassed elegance and rare beauty on the lawn or in the forest; is of vigorous growth, attaining two feet in diameter and thirty feet in height, with a beautifully cut leaf of rich bluish green, decked with showy sprays of creamy white flowers six to ten inches across, and in the fall of the year gorgeously arrayed and heavily laden with purple berries, interspersed with green fruit and blossoms, which continue to bud and bloom from June to September, giving a succession of flowers, green fruit, and ripe purple
