THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 83 



"6. At least some members of the Diike group of cherries are capable 

 of pollinating some of the Bigarreaus. 



"7. At least some of the varieties of the Sour Cherry (P. cerasus) are 

 capable of pollinating some of the Bigarreaus. 



" 8. Inter-sterility of Sweet Cherry varieties is apparently not corre- 

 lated with their closeness of relationship. 



"9. The ability of a variety of cherry to set fruit is not entirely 

 dependent upon the kind of pollen available. Environmental factors are 

 important." 



It is doubtful if New York cherry-growers will need to pay much atten- 

 tion to cross-pollination but, in case cherry trees are not setting full crops, 

 and for no other apparent reason, the fertility of the blossoms may well 

 receive attention. Should varieties be found self-sterile, sorts must be 

 chosen which come into blossom at the same time, in which case the pre- 

 ceding table shows the sorts which bloom together or nearly enough so to 

 make cross-pollination possible. 



CHERRY ORCHARDS AND THEIR CARE 



It is patent to the eye of every passer-by that cherry trees are com- 

 monly set too thickly in most of the orchards in New York. While close 

 planting is a universal fault, the amount of room differs greatly in 

 different cherry centers, depending mostly upon the custom in the com- 

 munity, though, as all confess, it should depend upon the variety and 

 the soil. The very erroneous notion seems to have prevailed in set- 

 ting the plantations now reaching maturity that a large return could 

 be skimmed from a small area by close setting. Sour Cherries often being 

 put only twelve feet apart each way and Sweet Cherries, considering their 

 great size, even closer, at sixteen feet. Experienced growers now put such 

 dwarf kinds as the Morellos at from sixteen to eighteen, the Montmorencies 

 and their kind at eighteen to twenty-two; and the large growing Sweet 

 Cherries at from twenty-four to thirty feet. 



Cherries are usually planted two years from the bud. Spring is the 

 season for setting, though the hardy Sour sorts might often be set 

 advantageously in late autumn. The losses at setting time are greater 

 with the cherry than with any other fruit, old hands in fruit-growing losing 

 trees as well as beginners. An experiment at the Station shows that these 

 losses are greatly mitigated by a change in the usual method of trans- 

 planting. The custom is to shorten-in all branches of transplanted fruit- 

 trees but this, with the cherry in particular, removes the largest and 



