MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 377 



■well at a rod apart, and I have seen a 50-year-old tree standing alone 

 covering a space more than 60 feet across and loaded with bushels of 

 cherries. 



Yet the tree should not be heavily manured while young, as most 

 of our varieties are rank growing, and, therefore, rather apt to winter 

 kill at the ends of the branches, and even sometimes to be injured by 

 extreme hot weather after a rapid growth in the spring. Heavy ma- 

 nuring may also result in overbearing, sacrificing quality to quantity of 

 fruit, more setting on the branches than can grow to good size. A 

 steady and regular growth is better than a rapid one. 



It is well, at least while the tree is young, to cut off the ends of 

 the limbs each fall after the leaves drop, taking nearly one third of the 

 season's growth, as it bears only in wood two years old or more. This 

 and cutting out dead branches is all the pruning the cherry tree needs. 



Like other stone fruits it requires a fertilizer or manure rich in 

 potash, but it will bear more nitrogen also after the tree has attained a 

 ^ood growth. 



Although the tree is sometimes troubled by caterpillars and can- 

 ker worms, they will not often trouble the cherry if they can find ap- 

 ple trees to feed upon, and they can be kept away by spraying with 

 some of the arsenical poisons when they are found upon the tree. The 

 fungous disease, which sometimes causes the frait to rot upon the tree 

 before it ripens, is a worse enemy than any insect. To guard against 

 this, spray with the solution of sulphate of copper in the early spring 

 before the buds start, using it very strong. After the blossoms have 

 fallen, spray again with same, but using a weaker solution, not more 

 than two ounces of sulphate of copper in a hundred gallons of water ; 

 repeat about once in two weeks until the fruit begin to ripen. If so 

 much spraying is troublesome, it is also vexatious to fail to find any 

 cherries fit to eat or to cook after watching a good crop grow. Spray- 

 ing seems to be almost a necessity now, if one would have good fruit 

 of any kind, and if others spray, there will be no market for any but 

 good fruit. 



The curculio sometimes attacks the cherry, and if abundant it may 

 be necessary to either add an arsenical compound to the spraying mix- 

 ture after the fruit has set, or fight them by jarring off and burning. 

 There is also a slug which attacks the leaf in some sections that may 

 need to be destroyed by spraying. 



As regards varieties, one may take his choice of those which are 

 so acid as to be almost unsuitable for eating excepting when cooked 

 and well sweetened; those that are so so sweet as to have almost a 

 sickish taste to some, or a milder flavored fruit tnat a few like, but 



