THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 97 



CHAPTER IV 



LEADING VARIETIES OF CHERRIES 

 ABBESSE D'OIGNIES 



Prunus avium X Prunus cerasus 



I. Mortillet Le Cerisier 2:182. l866. 2. Leroy Diet. Pom. 5:161, 162 fig. 1877. 3. Hogg Fruit 

 Man. 276, 277. 1884. 4. Mich. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 329. 1888. 5. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:284. 

 1903. 6. la. Sta. Bid. 73:62 fig. 1907. 7. N. Y. Sta. Bui. 385:307. 3o8, PI. 1914. 



Abbesse d'Oignies has so many good characters that it is well worth 

 trying commercially wherever cherries are grown in the United States. 

 Curiously enough, it seems so far to have been tried only in the Middle 

 West, Professor Budd having introduced it in Iowa from Russia in 1883. 

 In the unfavorable soil and climatic conditions of the Mississippi 

 Valley, Abbesse d'Oignies grows as well as any cherry of its class, if we 

 may judge from the accounts of it. We do not know of its having been 

 tried elsewhere in the East than on our grounds and here we find it, in 

 competition with practically all of the varieties of its class, one of the 

 best of the Dukes. At this Station it does so well that we described it, 

 in the reference given, as one of the noteworthy fruits in our collection. 

 The trees are large, vigorous, hardy, fruitful and very free from fungus 

 diseases. The cherries are large, dark red, of most excellent quality, 

 combining the flavor of the Dukes with a firmer and yet tenderer flesh 

 than the Montmorency. The high quality, handsome appearance and 

 good shipping qualities of the fruit, combined with the splendid characters 

 of the tree, ought to make Abbesse d'Oignies a very good commercial 

 variet3^ 



This cherry probably originated in Belgium about the middle of the 

 Nineteenth Century. At least it was first listed in Belgian nursery cata- 

 logs in 1854. It is now a greater or less favorite wherever cherries are 

 grown in the Old World, Professor Budd having found it, as we have said, 

 in 1883, in Russia and immediately transported it to America. 



Tree characteristically large and vigorous, upright-spreading, round-topped but with 

 drooping branchlets, hardy, productive; trunk stocky, with shaggy bark; branches thick, 

 smooth, ash-gray over reddish-brown, with many lenticels; branchlets short, with short 

 intemodes, brownish, roughened by transverse wrinkles and by numerous conspicuous, 

 small, raised lenticels. 



Leaves two and one-half inches wide, five and one-half inches long, folded upward, 

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