48 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



as commonplace as the other agricultural crops of the times. Varro 

 effectually disproves Pliny to whose mis-statement we have given so much 

 space only because for nearly 2000 years it has been generally accepted as 

 the truth. 



The gaps in the history of the cherry are long. Athenaeus,' Ter- 

 tuUian,^ Ammianus,^ and St. Jerome/ Roman writers of the Third and 

 Foiirth Centuries, mention cherries but chiefly to repeat and perpetuate 

 Pliny's errors. It was not until the Sixteenth Century — a lapse of 

 1400 years — that an attempt was again made to describe in full cultivated 

 cherries. Sometime in this century, Matthiolus (1487-1577), a Tuscan and 

 one of the eminent naturalists not only of Italy but of the world in the 

 Middle Ages, in translating and annotating the medical works of the Greek 

 writer Dioscorides, made a list of the fruit-trees then grown in Italy. As 

 the second descriptive list of cherries this contribution of Matthiolus 

 might be worth reprinting were it not, as in Pliny, that but few of his 

 varieties can be certainly made out. He does, however, make a number 

 of additions to Pliny's list but space does not permit a consideration of 

 these; especially since Gerarde, writing less than a century later in English, 

 so well amplifies Matthiolus that we shall print his account. 



CHERRIES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 



Pliny mentions the cherry as growing in several countries and, by 

 reading between lines, we may assume that cultivated cherries were dis- 

 tributed throughout all parts of Europe where agriculture was practiced, 

 by Christ's time or shortly thereafter. Pliny speaks of the cherry in 

 some connection with England, Germany, Belgium and Portugal. Surely 

 we may assume that the cherry was being grown at the same time in at 

 least the countries in Europe which are between or border on those named. 

 But from Pliny to the Sixteenth Century the current of progress in cherry 

 culture was immeasurably slow. In the intervening 1600 years not a score 

 of new cherries were brought under cultivation. Attention was probably 

 given during these dark ages to this and to all fruits as species and as 

 divisions of species which came nearly or quite true to seed. It was only 

 in the refinements of horticulture and botany brought about by the her- 

 balists that true horticultural varieties came into common cultivation. 



' Athenaeus Dipnosophistce Book II, Chap. XXXIV-V. 



* Tertullian Apologeticum Chap. XI. 



'Ammianus History 0} the Roman Emperors Book 22, Chap. XVI. 



« St. Jerome Epislulae Book I, Letter XXXV. 



