39 
SLL ce MORE. COUSINS 
HERRIES and plums we find 
growing wild in the woods 
and fields. While in many 
ways the wild trees are 
unlike those we grow in 
our orchards, yet, if you look 
p closely at their flowers and fruits, 
you will find they answer generally to the 
Fic. 29 descriptions you have been reading. 
Early in May, when the orchard is still gray and 
dreary, suddenly we notice that the upper branches of 
the cherry tree look as though a light snow had fallen. 
It seems as if the lovely blossoms had burst forth in 
an hour. One’s heart gives a joyful jump. Summer 
is really coming. The flowers of May promise the fruit 
of June. 
But when we find the blossoms of the wild cherry, it 
is several weeks later. Some of the’ little wood flowers 
have already come and gone. The trees are thick with 
leaves before we discover the fragrance of its slender, 
drooping clusters; for, though in other ways these 
blossoms are almost exactly like those of the cultivated 
cherry, they are much smaller, and grow differently on 
the branches. 
This same difference in size and manner of growing 
you will find between the wild and the cultivated fruits. 
You country children know well the little chokecherries 
(Fig. 29) that are so pretty and so plentiful along the 
