8 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



AMELIORATION OF THE CHERRY 



The amelioration of the cherry has been in progress almost since 

 the dawn of civilization, yet few men have directed their efforts toward 

 the improvement of this fruit. The histories of the varieties described 

 in The Cherries of New York show that nearly all of them have come 

 from chance seedlings. Possibly there has been little interest in 

 improving cherries because this fruit is comparatively immutable in its 

 characters. 



In spite of the fact that there are a great number of varieties, 1,145 

 being described in The Cherries of New York, this of all stone-fruits is most 

 fixed in its characters. The differences between tree and fruit in the many 

 varieties are less marked than in the other fruits of Prunus and the varieties 

 come more nearly true to seed. Though probably domesticated as long 

 ago as any other of the tree-fruits, the cherry is now most of all like its 

 wild progenitors. The plum is very closely related to the cherry but it 

 has varied in nature and under cultivation much more than the cherry 

 and in accordance with different environments has developed more marked 

 differences in its species to endure the conditions brought about by the 

 topographical and climatic changes through which the earth has passed. 

 Under domestication more than twice as many orchard varieties of the 

 plum have come into being as of the cherry. In spite of this stability, 

 there are ample rewards in breeding cherries to those who will put in prac- 

 tice rightly directed efforts to improve this fruit — a statement substan- 

 tiated by the histories of some of the best varieties, described later in this 

 text, which were originated through what was passing as current coin in 

 plant-breeding before the far better methods of the present time, brought 

 about by Mendel's discovery, came into being. 



The cherry, as the histories of its many diverse kinds show, has been 

 improved only through new varieties. There is no evidence, whatever, to 

 show that any one of the several hundred cherries described in this text 

 has been improved by selection as a cumulative process, or, on the other 

 hand, that any one of them has cumulatively degenerated. Of varieties 

 cultivated for their fruits there are no records of mutations either from the 

 seed or from bud, though of the ornamental cherries not a few have arisen 

 as bud-mutations, as, for example, the several double-flowered cherries and 

 those of weeping or fastigiate habit of growth and the many sorts with 

 abnormally colored foliage. Since improvement depends upon the bring- 

 ing into being of new cherries it becomes highly important to know 



