THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK IO3 



BING 



Prunus avium 



I. U. S. D.A. Rpt. 262, PI. 4 fig. a. 1892. 2. Wash. Bd. Horl. Rpl. 126, 128. 1893. 3. Am. Pom. 

 Soc. Cat. 24. 1899. 4. W. N. Y. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 112. 1900. 5. Ibid. 26. 1904. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. 

 Rpt. 192. 1907. 7. Wickson Cal. Fruits 187. 1908. 8. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 26. 1909. 9. Wash. Sta. 

 Bui. 92:23. 1910. 



Bing is one of the best of the several very good cherries from the Pacific 

 Northwest. But few Sweet Cherries equal it in size and attractiveness 

 and none surpass it in quality, so that it may be said to be as good as any 

 of the dessert cherries. It is, too, a very good shipping fruit, ranking with 

 the best of the Bigarreaus, to which group it belongs, as a cherry for distant 

 markets. Another quality commending the variety is that it hangs well on 

 the trees and the crop ripens at one time so that the harvest consists of but 

 one picking. While many cherry-growers speak well of the trees, unfortu- 

 nately we cannot do so from their behavior on the grounds of this Station. 

 They have not been as vigorous, as healthy or as productive as cherry trees 

 should be in a commercial variety of first rank. The cause, however, may 

 be in the location rather than in the variety, for in an orchard but a few 

 miles distant Bing does much better than on these grounds. The variety, 

 though comparatively new, is no longer on probation. It has a niche in 

 the cherry flora of the country, deserving a place in the collection of every 

 amateur by virtue of its splendid fruit. When it is happy in soil and 

 climate, Bing is bound to be one of the leading commercial cherries. 



Seth Lewelling of Milwaukee, Oregon, the originator of several of our 

 finest cherries, grew Bing from the seed of Republican in 1875. The variety 

 was named after a Chinese workman. In 1899 the American Pomological 

 Society placed the variety on its fruit list. 



Tree large, vigorous, erect becoming upright-spreading, rather open, productive; 

 trunk and branches thick, smooth; branches brownish with numerous, small lenticels; 

 branchlets thick, long, with long intemodes, greenish-brown, smooth, pubescent, with 

 small, raised, conspicuous lenticels. 



Leaves abimdant, large, folded upward, ovate to obovate of medium thickness; 

 upper surface dark green, smooth; lower surface light green, pubescent; apex abruptly- 

 pointed, or acute, base abrupt; margin slightly serrate, glandular; petiole long, pubescent, 

 thickish, tinged red, with from one to three large, reniform, reddish glands on the stalk. 



Fruit matures in mid-season or later; very large, one inch in diameter, broadly cor- 

 date, somewhat compressed, slightly angular; cavity deep, of medium width, abrupt, 

 regular; sutvire a dark line; apex roundish or slightly depressed; color very dark red, 



