HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 371 



colors are yellow and black, with glossy skin, making it look showy 

 and attractive in market. Unless quite ripe it is not a fruit to be 

 eaten out of hand, as it has a trace of the choke cherry flavor, but 

 when cooked this disappears, and a flavor and quality is brought 

 out equal to to the Early Eichmond. It is an annual bearer and 

 a heavy cropper. In a trial lot I planted last spring I gave the 

 plants a distance of seven feet apart each way. The sand cherry 

 is a rapid grower, and drouth proof. Small plants from layers and 

 root sprouts, planted last spring, have made a growth of two and 

 one-half feet the past season. Unless this native fruit develops 

 some weakness not yet observed or reported, it is destined to be a 

 profitable sort to grow both for home use and the market. It cer- 

 tainly is popular now with those who have it in their gardens. It 

 is propagated easily by layering, planting the pits, and by root 

 sprouts, and presumably by cuttings. 



The choke cherry is a beautiful lawn tree— erect and graceful in 

 form, handsome in foliage, and sweetly fragrant in its flowers, 

 whose long racemes, luxuriantly covering the outer branches, and 

 pendulous from the drooping twigs, rival the plum tree bloom in 

 challenging admiration. The fruit is perhaps still more beautiful 

 hanging in long clusters of glossy dark red berries, changing to full 

 black when dead ripe. Unless at the v°try last of its ripening stage, 

 when its acrid flavor almost entirely disappears, it is not a fruit to 

 be eaten uncooked, but in cooking this quality is gotten rid of, and 

 the fruit is then delicious. Nothing makes a better pie or jam than 

 pitted choke cherries. The only objection to the tree is its repu- 

 tation as a host and spreader of the black knot, but as intimated in 

 remarks about plums, this disease seems easily eradicated. 



The buffalo berry is another lovely lawn tree —silvery in foliage 

 as its botanical name implies, fairly graceful in form, unique in the 

 appearance of its fruit buds in late autumn and winter, and the 

 gaudiest of all our trees in the season of ripening. A hillside cov- 

 ered with a sheperdia thicket is one mass of bright vermilion. For 

 screens and garden hedges I know nothing approaching it, and it 

 is possible that under proper training it may be suitable for a farm 

 hedge against stock. The fruit is small, about half as large as the 

 currant, but can be gathered by the handful, although some cau- 

 tion must be used in picking to avoid the thorns. It has a cran- 

 berry flavor, quite pleasant to the taste. The season of ripening 

 is the middle of August, but the fruit remains in good condition on 

 the tree for weeks afterwards. It is also a drouth proof tree. It 

 seems to choose the dryest and most exposed hillsides, and there is 

 quite irregular, scrubby in form, perhaps from the frequent rava- 

 ges of fire, but transplanted to the garden, grows fairly upright and 

 symmetrical, with a drooping habit of the lower branches. As seen 

 in its native growth it appears to be about as large in stem as the 

 plum, though not quite so tall or spreading. Nurserymen will proba- 

 bly make no mistake if they propagate this tree as rapidly as possi- 

 ble for the markets far and near. I have learned this year from 

 Prof. Budd how to germinate its seed. All there is of it is to wash 

 out and pack in sand as soon as gathered and then treat the same as 

 plu m pits. 



