ii8 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



duties would be to take the entire care oi tablish and manage a city nursery, which 



the trees in the streets, to apply remedial would supply the new trees when required, 



measures wherever necessary, to remove W Lochhead. 



dead trees and plant new ones, and to es- O. A. C, Guelph. 



CHERRY TREE ON THE TABLE. 



fOMETHING new is promised in the 

 way of a society fad, and the very 

 I wealthy New \'ork set, which is 

 always lookini^ out for fresh oppor- 

 tunity to squander money, is pleased greatly 

 by the novelty oi the idea, says the Boston 

 Transcript. 



During the present winter no really swell 

 and properly-equipped dinner table has been 

 considered complete on a festive occasion 

 in the house of any fashionable millionaire 

 unless there is a dwarf cherry tree for an 

 ornament — at least one cherry tree, that is 

 to say, though there may be as many as 

 half a dozen. These trees will bear actual 

 fruit, ruddy ripe, which the guests are 

 expected to pluck for themselves when 

 dessert time arrives. Not more than loo 

 cherries will be on each tree, but, inasmuch 

 as they will be of extraordinary size and 

 delicious quality, besides being so unusual 

 a luxury, this number should suffice for a 

 small dinner party at all events — one of 

 those ideally managed entertainments at 

 which, in accordance with accepted theorv 

 in such matters, the persons present are not 

 fewer than the graces nor exceeding the 

 muses numerically. 



These dwarf cherry trees have been 

 evolved by the ingenuity of French garden- 

 ers, and during the last winter thev have 

 been the vogue in gay Paris. That thev 

 cost a good deal of money goes without 

 saying, inasmuch as the fruit has to be 

 forced by special processes in the green- 

 house, and, the little crop once picked, there 

 cannot be another until a twelvemonth 



later. The French are wonderful at this 

 sort of thing, having developed the art of 

 horticulture along certain lines to a point 

 undreamed of on this side oi the Atlantic. 



The cherry trees, as they appear on the 

 dinner-table, are four or five years old, but 

 have trunks only about an inch and a half 

 in diameter. They have never been per- 

 mitted to grow more than three feet high, 

 being kept cut down to that point, while 

 most of the branches are lopped off, so that 

 the little tree has a wholly artificial aspect. 

 At the proper time it is set in a pot and 

 placed in the hothouse for the purpose oi 

 forcing it to fruit. And finally, when the 

 fruit appears, most of the cherries are 

 removed, while as j-et immature, with a 

 pair of scissors, only loo or so being allowed 

 to ripen. As a result they have a size and 

 quality far superior to the best of ordinary 

 cherries. 



Rich people in Paris are not less reckless 

 of money expenditure than are those of the 

 smart set in New York, and there is pro- 

 bably no place in the world where fruits of 

 rare or exceptionally delicious varieties 

 command such extravagant prices. The 

 first cherry that was offered in the Paris 

 market this year brought 20 francs, or $4 — 

 not a cherry tree, mind you, but a single 

 cherry. But then it was the only cherry 

 for sale on that day, and so it may be said 

 to have been relatively cheap. It was pur- 

 chased by Count Boni de Castellane, or, 

 more correctly speaking, was bought for 

 him bv his order. 



