DENDROLOGY. 



137 



there is the less occasion for it as other wood, in no respect 

 inferior, is procured with facility. In the bark of the roots there 

 is a strong odor resembling that of the wild cherry stone, from 

 which a fragrant, spirituous liquor may be obtained. 



Wild Cherry Tree. Cerasus Virginiana. 



The Wild Cherry Tree is 

 one of the largest productions 

 of the American forest. In 

 the Atlantic as well as the 

 Western States, this tree is 

 known only by the name 

 which we have adopted. It 

 is more or less abundant as 

 the soil and climate are more 

 or less favorable to its growth, 

 to which the extremes of 

 heat and cold in the seasons, 

 and of dryness and humidity 

 in the soil, are alike unpro- 

 pitious. It abounds in Illi- 

 nois, in Genessee and in 

 Upper Canada ; but it is no 

 where more profusely multiplied nor more fully developed than 

 beyond the mountains in the state of Ohio, Kentucky and 

 Tennessee. 



In the state of Maine, where the winter is long and intense, it 

 hardly exceeds 30 or 40 feet in height, and from 8 to 12 inches 

 in diameter ; in the southern and maritime parts of the Carolinas 

 and of Georgia, where the summer is intemperately hot and where 

 the soil is generally arid and sandy, it is rarely seen, and on the 

 banks of rivers where the ground is too wet, its dimensions are 

 stinted 5 but in the upper parts of these states, where the climate 

 is milder and the soil more fertile, it is sufficiently common, 

 though less multiplied than in Virginia and Pennsylvania. 



18 



Fig. 1. A leaf. 



PLATE XXI. 



Fig. 2. The fruit. 



