THE KANSAS CHERRY. 7 



played by the princes of the different countries in causing the trees to be planted. 

 It would indeed be lamentable if kind treatment did not produce a correspond- 

 ing return. 



Soil and Situation. — A dry soil for the cherry is a universal 

 maxim, and although it is so hardy a tree that it will thrive in a great 

 variety of soils, yet a good sandy or gravelly loam is its favorite j)lace. 

 It will indeed grow in much thinner and dryer soils than most other 

 fruit-trees, but to obtain the finest fruit a deep and mellow soil of 

 good quality is desirable. When it is forced to grow in wet places, 

 or where the roots are constantly damp, it soon decays and is short- 

 lived. And we have seen this tree, when forced into too luxuriant a 

 growth in our overrich Western soils, become so gross in its wood as 

 to bear little or no fruit, and split open in its trunk, and soon perish. 

 It is a very hardy tree, and will bear a great variety of exposures with- 

 out injury. In deep, warm valleys, liable to spring frosts, it is, how- 

 ever, well to plant it on the north side of hills, in order to retard it in 

 the spring. 



Propagation. — The finer sorts are nearly always propagated by 

 budding on seedlings of the common black Mazzard, which is a very 

 common kind, producing a great abundance of fruit, and very healthy, 

 free-growing stocks. To raise these stocks, the cherries should be 

 gathered when fully ripe, and allowed to lie two or three days together, 

 so that they may be partially or wholly freed from the pulp by wash- 

 ing them in water. They should then be planted immediately in 

 drills in the seed plat, covering them about an inch deep. They will 

 then vegetate in the following spring, and in good soil will be fit for 

 planting out in the nursery rows in the autumn or following spring, 

 at a distance of ten or twelve inches apart in the row. Many persons 

 preserve their cherry-stones in sand, either in the cellar or in the open 

 air, until spring, but we have found this a more i^recarious mode ; the 

 cherry being one of the most delicate of seeds when it commences to 

 vegetate, its vitality is frequently destroyed by leaving it in the sand 

 twenty-four hours too long, or after it has commenced sprouting. 



After planting in the nursery rows, the seedlings are generally fit 

 for budding in the month of August following. And in order not to 

 have weak stocks overpowered by vigorous ones, they should always 

 be assorted before they are planted, placing those of the same size in 

 rows together. Nearly all the cherries are grown with us as standards. 

 The English nurserymen usually bud their standard cherries as high 

 as they wish them to form heads, but we always prefer to bud them 

 on quite young stocks, as near the ground as possible, as they then 

 shoot up clean, straight, smooth stems, showing no clumsy joint where 

 the bud and the stock are united. In good soils the buds will fre- 



