Cherry

“ All cherry-growers are familiar with the small, dark green, slimy slugs which feed on the surface of the leaves of the cherry, possibly more common on the foliage of pears, eating out the soft tissues and leaving but the skeleton of the leaf. ”

“ In the Kentish cherry the stone adheres so firmly to the footstalk, that it can be drawn out of the flesh; and this renders the fruit well fitted for drying. The Tobacco-leaved cherry, according to Sageret and Thompson, produces gigantic leaves, more than a foot and sometimes even eighteen inches in length, and half a foot in breadth. The Weeping cherry, on the other hand, is valuable only as an ornament, and, according to Downing, is "a charming little tree with slender weeping branches, clothed with small almost myrtle-like foliage." There is also a peach-leaved variety. ”

“ There are various wild growing species of cherry, which must not be confused with the cultivated varieties. The wild black cherry (Prunus serotina) is very common in our woods. It is a handsome tree, varying from 15 to 100 feet in height. It has a smooth bark on the younger branches. The fruit is rather small, fleshy portion thin and of a very dark color when fully ripened. The wild black cherry must not be confused with the poisonous choke cherry (Prunus virginiana) , which is a smaller tree and has red berries instead of black. ”

“ But perhaps the bloom that is richest and most promising in its general appearance is that of the cherry, clasping its white honours all round the long straight branches, from heel to point, and not letting a leaf or a bit of stem be seen, except the three or four leaves that come as a green finish at the extremity of each branch. ”

“ A Heart cherry mentioned in 1882 as a promising new fruit because of its extreme earliness and excellent quality. This variety, introduced by Thomas Rivers & Son, Sawbridgeworth, England, should not be confused with an older French sort often known by the same name but of a reddish-brown color. Tree moderate in growth; fruit glossy, black, round, of medium size, produced in clusters; flesh charcoal-black, very rich in flavor. ”

“ The plum and the peach surpass the cherry in diversity of flavor, aroma, texture, color, form and size, characters which make fruits pleasant to the palate and beautiful to the eye; but the cherry, perhaps, plays a more important part than the plum or the peach in domestic economy. It has fewer prejudices as to soil and climate, hence is much more widely distributed and is more easily grown, being better represented in the orchards and gardens in the regions where the three fruits grow. ”

“ On each side of us we saw the pear, thickly powdered with its chaste blossom, and growing to an enormous size, promising an abundant supply of fruit for the manufacture of that delicious perry, whose praises would form a worthy subject, for the muse of a second Phillips. Far and wide also, on every side, the cherry is cultivated to that extent as to overwhelm completely the Worcester and neighbouring markets in the season with its produce. ”

“ Eating cherries is a bird-like employment, and unless we disperse the seeds occasionally, as they do, I shall think that the birds have the best right to them. See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it—in the very midst of a tempting pericarp, so that the creature that would devour this must commonly take the stone also into its mouth or bill. If you ever ate a cherry, and did not make two bites of it, you must have perceived it—right in the centre of the luscious morsel, a large earthy residuum left on the tongue. ”

“ The cherry worm grows in the midst of the juice that feeds it; after attaining full size it falls from the tree with the damaged fruit and hastens to bury itself in the ground, there to undergo its transformation. Next spring it comes forth in the form of an elegant fly that lives on honey from the flowers and never again touches a cherry except to deposit its eggs therein, one by one. ”

“ The cherry, too, fruits more quickly after planting, ripens earlier in the season and its varieties are more regular in bearing and usually more fruitful—characters that greatly commend it to fruit-growing people. Probably it is the most popular of all fruits for the garden, dooryard, roadside and small orchard. All in all, while adorning a somewhat humbler place in pomology, it is more generally useful than the showier and more delicate plum and peach. ”

“ The birds bide the time when a blush upon the fruit betrays its ripeness. Then the cherries are greedily devoured, and their seed, preserved from digestion in their stony cases are borne over hill, dale, and river to some islet or brookside where a sprouting cherry plant will be free from the stifling rivalries suffered by its parent. ”

“ We have cultivated varieties, ripening in succession throughout the cherry season. There is no necessity for cultivating the common red and very acid cherry, except in climates too vigorous for the more tender cultivated varieties. The cherry is an ornamental tree, making a beautiful shade, besides the luxury of its fruit. ”

“ That which is red within, is more palatable than the English black cherry, as being without its bitterness. The other, which hangs on the branch like grapes, is water colored within, of a faintish sweet, and greedily devoured by the small birds. The third sort is called the Indian cherry, and grows higher up in the country than the others do. It is commonly found by the sides of rivers and branches on small slender trees, scarce able to support themselves, about the bigness of the peach trees in England. ”

“ While a certain variety of old fashioned sweet cherry will live and bear fruit, some of the recent improved varieties will not live. Every one that I have planted was winter-killed. The Montmorency cherry, however, does well. ”

“ We know from observation and experience that the common red cherry does exceedingly well there, while the best cultivated are apt to suffer much from the winters. One reason is, the common cherry is a slow-going, hardy tree, while the cultivated is more thrifty, and therefore more tender. ”

“ What fruit better adapted to the uses of colonists than the cherry? It possesses in a high degree, especially the Sour Cherry, the power of adaptation to new environment and thrives under a greater variety of conditions than any other of our fruits unless it be the apple, which it at least equals in this respect. The cherry is easily propagated; it comes in bearing early and bears regularly; of all fruits it requires least care—gives the greatest returns under neglect ”

“ The only wild fruit that I ever heard of was the native cherry; a fruit almost entirely composed of a hard kernel the size of a marble, with a thin outside rind that has an acid taste, and of which the colonists make a sweetmeat in default of anything better. The stone is buff-coloured, and much corrugated, and when a good many of them are strung together, and alternated with the nuts of the sandalwood tree, they make a pretty row of beads, a purpose for which nature seems to have intended them. ”

“ The leaf of the choke cherry is a wide and abruptly pointed oval. The fruit until dead ripe is red or yellow, and so puckery, harsh, and bitter that children, who eat the black cherries eagerly, cannot be persuaded to taste choke cherries a second time.
Birds are not so fastidious; they often strip the trees before the berries darken. ”

“ The warrior, touched at the sight of so many little helpless ones, promised that he would spare the city, and after feasting the children with Cherries, sent them back rejoicing and waving in their hands the Cherry-boughs.——There is an old proverb current in Germany, France, and Italy, that you should never eat Cherries with the rich, because they always choose the ripest, or, even worse, eat the luscious fruit, and throw the stones and stalks to their companions.——The gum which exudes from the Cherry-tree is considered equal in value to gum-arabic. ”

“ Tree vigorous, upright, very productive; fruit above medium in size, cordate, attached in ones, twos and threes; stem long; skin marbled with purple 215 changing to black; flesh firm, sugary, juicy, high flavored; pit small, ovoid; early. Recommended by the Société Pomologique de France as a good, early cherry. Bigarreau Blanc Précoce. P. avium. ”

“ Fruit matures in mid-season; three-fourths of an inch long, one inch wide, oblate, compressed; cavity deep; color light red changing to dark red; stem one and one-eighth inches long, adherent to the fruit; skin separating from the pulp; flesh yellowish-white, with abundant colorless juice, stringy, tender and melting, rather mild for a sour cherry; good to very good in quality; stone free, roundish or slightly oblate, plump, blunt, with smooth surfaces; ventral suture prominent.
HEART-SHAPED WEICHSEL Prunus cerasus
1. Truchsess-Heim Kirschensort. ”

“ Our knowledge of how wild cherries have been remodeled into the orchard and garden varieties of today—of what the methods and processes of domestication have been—is, therefore, doubtful and limited, for the mind and hand of man had been deeply impressed upon the cherry long before the faint traditions which have been transmitted to our day could possibly have arisen. ”

“ Certainly the history of the cherry is as old as that of agriculture in the southern European countries and is interwritten with it.
In beginning the history of a cultivated plant the first step is to ascertain where it grows spontaneously—where it may be found unplanted and unattended by man. This is the task now before us for Prunus cerasus and Prunus avium, discussing them in the order named. ”

“ The gradual effects of cultivation, as they regard the cherry, have been the production of several kinds, which, both in size and flavour, infinitely exceed the fruit of the parent stock, or wild cherry of the woods. ”

“ According to Truchsess, this cherry was described in 1802 by Christ who states that it originated in Wanfred, Prussia, Germany. Truchsess believed, however, that the name was a corruption of Sauriotte, a sour or Weichsel cherry. Fruit round, somewhat flattened, above medium in size; suture indistinct; apex slightly depressed, gray; stem strong; skin dark red; flesh and juice of a slight reddish cast, sour, rather repulsive; stone large. Badacsony. P. avium. ”

“ The fruits are extensively used for canning. Cherry trees should be planted when 2 and 3 years old. Too rich soil tends to make growth at the expense of fruit, particularly in the sweet Cherries. For the sweet types, a strong, gravelly loam is best. Sour Cherries thrive well on clay loams.
Trees of the sour Cherry should be planted 18 by 18 ft. apart, in well prepared under-drained soil. The trees may be slightly trimmed back each year, keeping the head low and bushy.
Black Tartarian Cherry
The sweet Cherries have proved disappointing in many instances from the rotting of the fruit. ”

“ From Cerasus, in Asia, Lucullus, no doubt, transplanted a cultivated fruit-tree, of a peculiarly fine sort; but the fruit itself was not unknown to the Romans long anterior to the time of Lucullus. It was slow in acquiring an esteem in Italy. The most extraordinary species of cherry with which I am acquainted, is the Australian cherry, which grows with the stone on the outside. But Nature, in Australia, is distinguished for her freaks. There the pears are made of wood, and salt-water fish abound in the fresh-water rivers! ”

“ The trees are a little tender to cold, are not quite productive enough to make the variety profitable and are, too, somewhat fastidious as to soils. To offset these defects, they are vigorous and 200 healthy and bear early. But the chief fault of the cherry from the cherry-grower's standpoint is to be found in the fruit. The flesh is soft and the cherries will not stand handling in harvesting and shipping and are very susceptible to brown-rot and crack badly in wet weather. ”

“ The cherry, while a very common fruit in nearly all agricultural regions of America, does not hold the place in American markets as a fresh fruit that it does in the towns and cities of Europe. The great abundance of strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, dewberries, blackberries, as well as early varieties of tree fruits, makes keener here than abroad the competition in the fruit markets during cherry time. ”

“ Robert Manning, Salem, Massachusetts, raised this cherry from a seed of White Bigarreau. Tree vigorous, productive; fruit rather large, roundish-cordate, flattened on one side, with a distinct suture; stem slender, inserted in a shallow cavity; skin amber, shaded and mottled with red, with a semi-transparent, glossy appearance; flesh yellow when fully ripe, tender, with a sweet, delicious juice; stone large ”

“ Prunus cerasus is the Sour Cherry, or Pie Cherry, of many languages—grown and esteemed in temperate climates the world over and probably the most widely distributed of all tree fruits. The species is found truly wild, as we have set forth in detail in the following chapter, in southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe. It is a frequent escape from cultivation, multiplying from seed distributed by birds or human agencies or growing from suckers which spring so freely from the roots as to make the species unfit for a stock in orchard work. ”

“ German cherry juice 15 galls.; pure rect. spirits, 20 galls.; syrup, 5 galls.; oil of bitter almonds, 1 drachm.
Obs. Equal part of fully ripe Morello cherries and black cherries produce the richest cordial. Some persons prick each cherry separately with a needle instead of crushing them; in which case they retain them in the liquor, and serve up a few of them in each glass. The plan named in the first formula is, however, that usually adopted. On the small scale, the fruit is commonly bruised between the fingers. ”