SECRETARY^ PORTFOLIO. 411 



taste. None but hardy kinds should be planted, and probably trees all of 

 the best single kind for market fruit, would give the best effect and result. 

 Where a farm is high and sightly along the road, a fringe of such trees has 

 a fine effect. Kept in order it can hardly be otherwise than that the owner 

 will be of good standing among his neighbors, as he will have no desire to 

 waste his time with a town office, or to go to the Legislature, and remain 

 there until cherries are ripe. 



Besides all this, there is a humanizing tendency in cherry t pie, and in the 

 winter a decided anti-bilious influence in the canned fruit, the acid of which 

 is very gratifying to a stomach familiar with pork and potatoes, buckwheat 

 cakes and maple syrup. Whoever will persuade our people to use more acid- 

 ulous fruit in the winter will be their benefactor. 



In Southern Michigan the rough work of pioneering is ended. When the 

 country was new, all workers of the soil raised nearly the same things for 

 sustenance and sale. The call was for the staples. Differentiation had not 

 commenced. As a country grows older, and civilization advances, variety 

 increases. The law of progress is from the simple to the complex, from 

 unity to variety, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. All will not 

 want cherry trees, and birds, and beauty; and some will deem it a wasted 

 effort to plant the trees, and invite the birds, and make the beauty by the 

 roadside. But seeing is believing, and having seen, I believe. 



Marketing Cherries. — W. J. Fowler, of Monroe county, New York, 

 chats in the Country Gentleman about marketing cherries : I am satisfied 

 that we have to learn considerable about handling cherries, and possibly 

 about marketing them, to procure the best results. At present, though they 

 pay tolerably well, the growers do not get a price commensurate with that 

 which the consumer has to pay. I do not know that the middlemen get too 

 much for their trouble. Probably the difficulty is that they are not choice 

 enough m assorting and selecting cherries, and handle them, may be, too 

 much as if they were potatoes. The very choicest fruit this year has brought 

 a high price in the New York and Philadelphia markets. Too much infe- 

 rior fruit has glutted the market and brought down the price of all besides 

 seriously checking the consumption. If shippers would require growers to 

 be more strict in selections, as well as more careful themselves, both would 

 be benefited, and the demand would largely increase. Consumers might not 

 have to pay any more for the fruit they eat than now, but they would be 

 much better satisfied. Where baskets are piled one above another, much of 

 the fruit, if as tender as it generally is, will be bruised and rotten before it 

 reaches the market. Of course the buyer will not pay for this, and will, 

 indeed, pay something less for his package for having such fruit in it. The 

 result is loss and dissatisfaction all around. 



We Have Sympathy. — The following lament from Josiah Hoopes in the 

 Philadelphia Press will awaken a sympathetic groan from many a Wolverine 

 pomologist : Just thirty-four years ago I planted my first cherry tree, which 

 was the nucleus of a collection, formed by annual additions in after years, 

 that contained every variety of note described in the books. At first they 

 did well, as I had planted sufficient for the birds and myself. Then the ter- 

 rible rot put in an appearance on the Bigarreau or firm-fleshed varieties, and 

 it has gradually extended to all the tender-fleshed kinds until there is rarely 



