THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 55 



and of a most pleasant taste, as witnesseth Mr. Evil, the Queenes Majesties 

 Clockmaker, who did taste of the fruit (the tree bearing onely one cherry, 

 which he did eat; but my selfe never tasted of it) at the impression hereof. 

 We have also another, called the Agriot Cherry, of a reasonable good 

 taste. Another we have with fruit of a dun colour, tending to a watchet. 

 We have one of the Dwarfe Cherries, that bringeth forth fruit as great 

 as most of our Flanders Cherries, whereas the common sort hath very 

 small Cherries, and those of an harsh taste. These and many sorts more 

 we have in our London gardens, whereof to write particularly would greatly 

 enlarge our volvime, and to small purpose: therefore, what hath beene 

 said shall suffice. I must here (as I have formerly done, in Peares, Apples, 

 and other such fruites) refer you to my two friends, Mr. John Parkinson, 

 and Mr. John Millen, the one to furnish you with the history, and the 

 other with the things themselves, if you desire them." 



One can only roughly surmise as to what the cherries mentioned in 

 this paragraph are with the exception of the Agriot which is, if the 

 synonymy of several European pomologists be correct, the Griotte Com- 

 mime, a sort supposed to have been brought from Syria by the crusaders 

 and to have been recorded under the last name in France as early as 



1485. 



The end of the Seventeenth Century saw a great revival of agriculture 

 in all of its branches on the continent; in England the revival began with 

 the fall of the commonwealth. From this time the progress of cherry 

 culture has been so rapid and so great that it would be an endless task 

 to give even a cursory view of it — a task unnecessary, too, for succeeding 

 the herbalists a great number of botanies, pomologies and works on agri- 

 culture were published to many of which reference is stUl easy. Moreover, 

 the histories of varieties in this text carry us back quite to the beginning 

 of the Eighteenth Century. 



There now remains for the history of the cherry but to sketch its 

 introduction and culture in North America, an undertaking that can be 

 done briefly and to the point, for the data are abundant, recent and reliable. 

 Here, too, accounts of the origin of varieties and the development of the 

 cherry may be looked for in the chapters which comprise the main part 

 of the book. 



CHERRIES IN AMERICA 



The cherry was one of the first fruits planted in the fields cleared 

 and enriched by our hardy American ancestry. From Canada to Florida 

 the colonists, though of several nationalities and those from one nation 



