64 THE KANSAS CHERRY. 



LARGE CHERRY TREES. 



At Monte Rio, five miles southeast of Newcastle, Placer county, 

 California, on the place of Robert Hector, is to be found what are prob- 

 ably the largest cherry trees in the world. There are about fifty of 

 these trees, which were planted in 1853. According to The Pac'ifie 

 Bee, Mr, Hector has systematically made inquiry, whenever he heard 

 of a large cherry tree in any place in the world, and all his investigation 

 thus far has failed te find upon this continent, or upon the old con- 

 tinent, trees as large as his own. The next largest tree he has heard 

 of is in Buffalo, N. Y. What is perhaps the largest tree in the lot is 

 a Black Tartarian, and is seventy feet high. Its branches spread 

 over a piece of ground the diameter of which is between seventy and 

 seventy-five feet, and the trunk is between ten and eleven feet in cir- 

 cumference. From one of these cherry trees, in one season, has been 

 taken as high as 3000 pounds of fruit. The trees are really too large 

 to be profitable, for the fruit has to be gathered with the aid of ex- 

 tension ladders securely guyed, by men slung in swings from such 

 ladders or the forks of the trees. The best fruit, of course, is toward 

 the tips of the branches, and, therefore, the most diffiult to reach. 



HIGH PRICES FOR CHERRIES. 



A press dispatch, dated New York, May 6, reads as follows : Cali- 

 fornia cherries have furnished the feature of the fruit market for the 

 last few days, and they have, as a rule, brought excellent prices. The 

 fruit auction company sold fifty-one boxes yesterday at auction, and 

 they were snapped up at prices ranging from $8.25 down to $1.75 per 

 ten-pound box. The phenomenal price paid for the choicest lots 

 probably establishes a record. The same company sold twenty boxes 

 to-day at equally fancy prices. 



MONEY IN CHERRIES. 



The Cloverdale Eeveille recently printed the following: Farley 

 Abshire has shipped 285 boxes of cherries, each l)ox containing ten 

 pounds. The fruit netted him about one dollar per box. He still has 

 about 3000 pounds of later varieties which he will dispose of to the 

 canneries. He will realize probably $300 from less than an acre of 

 ground. Who says cherries do not pay ? 



