The garden Plums are a good cultivated variety of our own wild Sloe, but a variety that did not originate in England, and may very probably have been introduced by the Romans. The Sloe and Bullace are, speaking botanically, two sub-species of Prunus communis, while the Plum is a third sub-species (P. communis domestica). The garden Plum is occasionally found wild in England, but is certainly not indigenous. It is somewhat strange that our wild plant is not mentioned by Shakespeare under any of its well-known names of Sloe, Bullace, and Blackthorn. Not only is it a shrub of very marked appearance in our hedgerows in early spring, when it is covered with its pure white blossoms, but Blackthorn staves were indispensable in the rough game of quarterstaff, and the Sloe gave point to more than one English proverb: "as black as a Sloe," was a very common comparison, and "as useless as a Sloe," or "not worth a Sloe," was as common.
"Sir Amys answered, 'Tho' I give thee thereof not one Sloe! Do right all that thou may!"
"The offecial seyde, Thys ys nowth Be God, that me der bowthe, Het ys not worthe a Sclo."
_The Frere and His Boy_--RITSON'S _Ancient Popular Poetry_.
Though even as a fruit the Sloe had its value, and was not altogether despised by our ancestors, for thus Tusser advises--
"By thend of October go gather up Sloes, Have thou in readines plentie of thoes, And keepe them in bed-straw, or still on the bow, To staie both the flix of thyselfe and thy cow."
As soon as the garden Plum was introduced, great attention seems to have been paid to it, and the gardeners of Shakespeare's time could probably show as good Plums as we can now. "To write of Plums particularly," said Gerard, "would require a peculiar volume. . . . Every clymate hath his owne fruite, far different from that of other countries; my selfe have threescore sorts in my garden, and all strange and rare; there be in other places many more common, and yet yearly commeth to our hands others not before knowne."
[217:2] Bullein, in his "Government of Health," 1588, calls them "Damaske Prunes."
Go to, sir, you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a Pomegranate.
_All's Well that Ends Well_, act ii, sc. 3 (275).