40 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Q. On a good large tree, how many cherries will they raise? A. I 

 have neighbors who will harvest as high as a thousand bushels per year. 



Q. Where is the profit when it is Avorth two cents per quart to pick 

 them? Does he make money growing them? A. Yes, sir. 



A Member: Do I understand you to ask if there is a profit in cherries 

 at |1.50 per bushel? If anyone will guarantee me a dollar per bushel 

 I Avill set my farm with them. I think with Richmond and a large 

 crop you can get them picked for a cent per quart. 



Mr. Morrill: I don't think we can grow sweet cherries in Michigan. 

 When the people want a nice sweet cherry they will take it from Cali- 

 fornia. For a sweet cherry, California is so far ahead that we can not do 

 anything in competition with it. But when it comes to sour cherries, 

 Michigan holds the mark. 



Q. Then if you are going to set cherries today the great majority 

 would be the old kinds? A. The Mayduke is doing just about as well 

 as anything we grow. A trifle darker color, but larger and better. 



Prof. Taft: We have two or three trees of Montmorency. Suda is 

 a good one. Then we have the Bessarabian, and a long list of others. 

 Most of our sweet cherry trees are as yet too small to bear. 



Q. What distance do you plant? A. Well — a rod or more apart; I 

 plant twenty feet anyway. 



Q. Is Montmorency as good a grower as Early Richmond? A. It is. 



Mr. Morrill : I have had the advantage of watching a neighbor's 

 orchard, who has a great variety of cherries. I have dismissed the sweet 

 cherries rather peremptorily. Gov. Wood seems to be a nice cherry, 

 but it rots very early. But the finest sweet cherry I have noticed is 

 Napoleon Bigarreau. I think what you say about the sweet cherries 

 coming from California is right, but they can't get a sour cherry that will 

 compare with ours. 



Prof. Taft: I wouldn't plant the sweet cherries to any great extent 

 but I have had some sent in from the lake shore. I have had some very 

 fine samples of Napoleon, and I think, perhaps, a few of those varie- 

 ties might be grown. Napoleon Bigarreau and the common Bigar- 

 reau might be grown with success. This year we had little injury to ou" 

 sour cherries. 



Mr. Morrill: Right to the contrary, our sour cherri.''s were badly killed 

 and sweet cherries, standing alongside, entirely urinjured. 



Mr. Reid: The same is the case in Allegan county, generally, as Mr. 

 Morrill mentions as to Benton Harbor. Certainly we have as nice sweet 

 cheries, both the light-colored and the dark ones, as I have seen from 

 California. This year the sweet cherries with us are very large and fine. 



Mr. Arthur Green: We have a tree of Coe's Transparent that is at 

 least eight inches through, and this year it is just loaded with fruit, and 

 finer cherries I never saw. 



Q. I would like to ask about the cultivation of cherries, I set out 

 an orchard this year and I should like to know about the cultivation. 

 A. I have been cultivating the sweet cherries more or less about 

 forty years. My observation is that the great difficulty in growing sweet 

 cherries is allowing them to grow too rapidly while they arc young and 

 bearing, and in heading the trees so high that the sun has a cha/ice at the 

 trunks. They are likely to burst, to rupture the bark. If that can be 



