The Cultivated Native Plums and Cherries. 97 



to it as "a promising new fruit from the plains" of Nebraiska.§ 

 It is only within the last two or three years, however, that the 

 sand cherry has come into actual cultivation for its fruit, although 

 as an ornamental plant it has been sold many years. Professor 

 C. A. Keffer described it last July in a bulletin of the South 

 Dalvota Experiment Station,** and a little later Professor Green, 

 of Minnesota, did the same.§§. Both men have grown it, and have 

 found it to be variable and promising. In South Dakota plants 

 set three years bore heavily the second and third years. The 

 " fruit begins to ripen the first week in August. The cherries on 

 most of the bushes were ripe by August twentieth, and some 

 few last into September, showing a season of from four to six 

 weeks in a seedling plantation. Classifying roughly according 

 to the fruit, we find yellow and black fruited sorts. The yellow- 

 fruited sorts, as a class, are earlier than the blacks, and of rather 

 better flavor. They are greenish yellow when fully ripe, and 

 vary in size, the largest being about the size of a medium Early 

 Eichmond cherry." The fruits vary greatly in flavor, some being 

 entirely worthless, while others were acceptable for some culinary 

 purposes. "While of little value when the quality of the fruit 

 is considered, it would seem that these dwarf cherries should give 

 rise to a race especially adapted to the northwest. They have 

 withstood all the dry weather of the past three years without 

 injury, and they have been covered with bloom for two seasons, 

 though unprotected during the winter." Professor G-reen, in 

 Minnesota, has "fruit varying in color from quite light red to 

 almost black, and in form from round-oblate to oval. The largest 

 fruit we have is oval with three-fourths inch and five-eighths 

 inch diameter, while one other is round and eleven-sixteenths of 

 an inch in diameter; this is nearly as large as the Early Eichmond 

 cherry. The quality varies greatly, some being a ndld, not dis- 

 agreeable, subacid, others insipid, andl still others very astringent. 

 * * * When cooked it makes a nice sauce. The period of 

 ripening varies from July twenty-fourth to August fifteenth. A 

 peculiarity of the plant is that all the fruit on any plant is ripe 



§ Ainer. Pom. Soc. Trans. 1889, 160. ** Bull. 26, S. Dak. Exp. Sta , 10. §§ BuU. 18, Minn. 



Exp. Sta., 127. 



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