196 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



WATERLOO 



Prunus avium X (Primus avium X Primus cerasus) 



I. Prince Treat. Hort. 29. 1828. 2. Land. Hort. Soc. Cat. 56. 1831. 3. Prince Pom. Man. 2:118. 

 1832. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 178. 1845. 5. Floy-Lindley Guide Orcli. Card. loi, 102. 1846. 

 6. Elliott Fr. Book 213, 214. 1854. 7. Hogg Fruit Man. 314. 1884. 



This old sort, seemingly well thought of in Europe, has not been 

 popular in America and has only historical value to cherry-growers of this 

 country. It is an interesting cherry resembling the Bigarreaus in tree and 

 leaf-characters while the flowers are more like those of the Diikes, the 

 fruit, too, taking on more the aspect of the Dukes than of the Sweet 

 Cherry. The variety has long since passed from general cultivation in the 

 United States and can now be found only in collections or as an occa- 

 sional dooryard tree. 



This cherry was raised early in the Nineteenth Century by T. A. 

 Knight, Downton Castle, Wiltshire, England, and first fruited in 1815, 

 shortly after the Battle of Waterloo, hence its name. It was supposed 

 to be a cross between Yellow Spanish and May Duke. The variety was 

 brought to this country by Honorable John Lowell of Newton, Massachu- 

 setts, though it was described by Prince in 1828 from European fruit books. 

 The following description is compiled: 



Tree vigorous, thrifty, rather irregidar and spreading, productive; branchlets thick, 

 stocky, grayish; leaves large, drooping, wavy; margin slightly serrate; flowers large; 

 stamens shorter than the pistil. 



Fruit matures the last of June or early in July; large, obtuse-cordate, broad at the 

 base, convex on one side, flattened on the other; stem one and one-half to two inches in 

 length, slender; color dark purplish-red becoming nearly black at maturity; skin thin; 

 flesh purplish-red becoming darker next to the stone, firm but tender, juicy, fine flavored, 

 sweet; good in quality; stone separating readily from the pulp, small, roimdish-ovate, 

 compressed. 



WHITE BIGARREAU 



Prunus avium 



1. Thacheryljn. OrcA. 217. 1822. 2. Prince Pow. Ifan. 2: 125. 1832. 3. i/ag. i?or/. 8:283. 1842. 

 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 180 fig., 181. 1845. 5. Thomas Am. Fruit Cult. 366. 1849. 6. Mcintosh 

 Bk. Card. 2:541. 1855. 



Tradescant. 7. Coxe Cult. Fr. Trees 250. 18 17. 



White Oxheart. 8. Kenrick Am. Orch. 278. 1832. 



White Bigarreau is a cherry of the past, having been considered one 

 of the good sorts of a century ago. Rivers, the English pomologist, 

 believed it to have come originally from Russia. It is reputed to have been 



