244 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



Downing Red Cheek. P. avium, i. Downing Fr. Trees Am. i86 fig. j6. 1845. 2. Elliott 

 Fr. Book 205. 1854. 



Rouge de Downing. 3. Mas Lg Verger 8:85, 86, fig. 41. 1866-73. 



Downing's Sdmling. 4. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 346. 1889. 



This attractive cherry, resembling Yellow Spanish, was raised by A. J. Downing,^ 

 Newburgh, New York, about 1840; its exact parentage is unknown. Tree vigorous, 

 upright-spreading, productive; fruit medium to large, obtuse-cordate, slightly compressed; 

 stem long, slender, inserted in a shallow cavity; skin thin, yellowish-white blushed and 

 mottled with attractive dark crimson; flesh yellowish but often very nearly white, half- 

 tender, juicy, delicate, sweet ; good in quality ; stone medium in size ; ripens from the middle 

 to the last of June. 



Downton. P. avium, i. Pom. Mag. 3:138 PI. 1830. 2. Prince Pom. Man. 2:124. 

 1832. 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 74. 1862. 4. ///. Handb. 485 fig., 486. 1861. 



Downioner Molkenkirsche. 5. Dochnahl FUhr. Obsikutide 3:^0. 1858. 



Guigne Downton. 6. Mortillet Le Cerisier 2:98, 303. 1866. 7. Leroy Diet. Pom. 

 5:321 fig. 1877. 



Imperatrice Downton 1 8. Mas Pom. Gen. 11:161. 1882. 



1 Andrew Jackson Downing was bom in Newburgh on the Hudson, the town in which he always lived 

 and which he loved, October 30, 181 5. He perished while trying to save other passengers in the burning 

 of the steamer Henry Clay on the Hudson River, July 28, 1852, at the age of 37. Andrew Downing's 

 education was largely acquired from self instruction although he attended the schools of his native town 

 and the academy in the adjoining village of Montgomery. His father, a nurseryman, whose work was 

 mentioned in the sketch of Charles Downing, elder brother of Andrew, gave the younger son every oppor- 

 tunity to cultivate an early developed taste for horticulture, botany and the natural sciences. When 

 but a youth he joined his brother Charles as partner in a nursery firm, a relationship maintained for but 

 a few years and which he severed to begin a career as a writer on landscape gardening and pomological 

 subjects. His first publication was a Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening adapted 

 to North America, with a view to the Improvement oj Country Residences, with Remarks on Rural Architec- 

 ture, a book published in 1 841, the author being but 26 years of age. The work passed into instant 

 popularity and is the word of authority which has told thousands of Americans what to do to make their 

 grounds beautiful. Within a few months so great was the success of the first venture that in response 

 to the demand he published his Cottage Residences, a companion book which was received with equal 

 favor, thus giving Andrew Downing first rank as an authority on rural art. In 1845 the Fruits and Fruit 

 Trees of America, then and now the chief pomological authority of this continent, was printed simultane- 

 ously in London and New York, a second edition coming out in 1850. In 1846 Andrew Downing became 

 the founder and editor of the Horticulturist, which he continued to pubUsh until his death. In 1849 he 

 wrote Additional Notes and Hints about Building in the Country, published in Wightwick's Hints to Young 

 Architects. The summer of 1850 was spent in England in the study of landscape gardening and rural 

 architecture from the result of which came his Architecture of Country Houses. His last work was the 

 editing of Mrs. Loudon's Landscape Gardening for Ladies though Rural Essays appeared after his death 

 as a collection of his writings with a memoir by George William Curtis and a Letter to his Friends by 

 Frederika Bremer. He was employed in planting the public grounds of the Capitol, the White House 

 and the Smithsonian Institution at Washington when he met his untimely death. Downing is the creator 

 of American landscape gardening and shares with his brother Charles the honor of being the most dis- 

 tinguished pomologist of the country. In the epoch-making Fruits and Fruit Trees of America Andrew 

 Downing was the real genius, Charles Downing the conscientious and painstaking student who worked 

 out the details. 



