50 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



England and no doubt this fruit became firmly established in Kent, where 

 the Romans settled, before the downfall of the southern invaders. With 

 the expulsion of the Romans and the subsequent influx of barbarians, 

 agriculture, especially gardening and fruit-growing, became almost a lost 

 art but still it is not probable that the cherry was wholly lost to cultivation 

 during the Teutonic invasions of Britain. 



Fruit-growing coiild not have greatly prospered, however, in the 

 centiiries of strife with the barbarians which succeeded Roman rule in 

 England; and a revival of cherry culture did not take place until the rein- 

 troduction of Christianity and the establishment of monasteries where, 

 undisturbed by wars, the monks became notable horticulturists. They 

 not only had opportunity in the comparative peace in which their lives 

 were cast to grow fruit but many of them were men of superior intelligence 

 and skill and from intercourse with the continental countries learned what 

 plants were worth growing and how to grow them — the monasteries 

 were the experiment stations of the times. Undoubtedly the monks in 

 bringing to England treasures from the continent did not forget fruits 

 and among them cherries. 



Passing by a considerable number of references which could be cited 

 to show that cherries of one kind and another were cultivated in Britain 

 from at least as early a date as the Ninth Century, we come to the dis- 

 cussion of this fruit by the herbalists of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 

 Centiiries. Of the three great English herbalists, Turner published his 

 work in 1538; Gerarde's, printed in 1596, was revised and greatly improved 

 by Johnson in 1633; Parkinson's Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, or 

 Park-in-Suns Earthly Paradise — the author evidently a punster — was 

 published in 1629. All of these contain as full botanical and pomological 

 discussions of cherries as knowledge then permitted. 



It must not be thought, by those unacquainted with the plant-lore 

 of the times, that the cherry received consideration only from the pens 

 of Turner, Gerarde, and Parkinson. During the time covered by the 

 lives of these three men a score or more of books were written in English 

 on botany and pomology in which accounts were given of the cherry, all 

 showing the esteem in which this fruit was held in England during and 

 before the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Space permits comments on the 

 account of the cherry given by but one of these Elizabethan herbalists, 

 and of the several Gerarde's seems best suited to our purpose. 



We have chosen Gerarde because he treats the cherry more fully 



