THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 69 



second American treatise on fruits, published in 1817, and again in 

 Thacher's American Orchardist, published in 1822.' Both authors, as 

 the footnotes show, speak of the use of this stock as if it were in common 

 use in American nurseries. Neither mentions the Mahaleb. 



The Mahaleb, Prunus mahaleb, it will be remembered from the 

 description previously given, is a bush or bush-like cherry, sometimes 

 but not often attaining the height and port of a tree. The top is thick, 

 with rather slender ramifying branches bearing small, green, smooth, 

 glossy leaves, which resemble those of the apricot more than they do the 

 leaves of either species of orchard cherries. The fruits are at first green, 

 then yellowish, turning to red and at full maturity are shining, black and 

 so hard, bitter and astringent as to be scarcely edible. This brief 

 description of Prunus mahaleb shows that it is quite distinct from either our 

 commonly cultivated Sweet Cherry, Prunus avium, or the Sour Cherry, 

 Prunus cerasus, differing from either much more than the two edible species 

 differ from each other. It is quite as far removed from the Sweet or the 

 Sour Cherry botanically as the apple is from the pear, the quince, or the 

 thorn and if anything more distantly related than orchard cherries are 

 to plums. One would expect the wood structure of the Mahaleb to differ 

 from that of Sweet or Sour Cherries very materially and that even if the 

 union proved in budding or grafting wholly normal that there would 

 be some difficulty in the proper passage of nutritive solutions between 

 stock and cion. This cherry, as we have seen, is propagated almost entirely 

 from seed though it may easily be grown from layers, cuttings and suckers. 

 The American supply of Mahaleb stock comes from France. 



The Mahaleb seems to have come into use as a stock for other cherries 



stocks, which are often preferred from their being less liable to the cracks in the bark, from frost and sun 

 on the south-west side; this injury may be almost effectually prevented by planting on the east side of 

 board fences or buildings, or by fixing an upright board on the south-west side of each tree in open 

 situations. 



" The best stocks are raised from stones planted in the nursery. Stocks raised from suckers of 

 old trees, will always generate suckers, which are injurious and very troublesome in gardens: diseases of 

 old or worn out varieties, are likewise perpetuated by the use of suckers for stocks." Coxe Fruit 

 Trees 1817:253. 



' " The cultivated cherry, when reared from the seed, is much disposed to deviate from the variety 

 of the original fruit, and, of course, they are propagated by budding or grafting on cherry stocks: budding 

 is most generally preferred, as the tree is less apt to suflfer from oozing of the gum than when grafted. The 

 stocks are obtained by planting the seeds in a nursery, and the seedlings are afterwards transplanted. 

 Those kinds which are called heart cherries are said to succeed best on the black mazard stock; but for 

 the round kind, the Morello stocks are preferred, on account of their being the least subject to worms, 

 or to cracks in the bark, from frost and heat of the sun." Thacher American Orchardist 1822:212. 



