CHERRY 



Wild ^ V HIS sketch of wild Cherry recalls a long list of lovely blossom- 

 Cherry i n g trees belonging to the Cerasus division of the Primus 

 genus. The picture unfortunately is of the least important 

 of the whole group the common wild Cherry of our Kentish 

 woods, as wonderful in the autumn for the glorious tones of red 

 and yellow in its fading leaves, as for the wealth of white blossom 

 in the spring. Some of the double varieties are considered more 

 beautiful in beauty of individual flower and spray they 

 certainly excel, but as trees they never seem to possess the 

 height or the graceful lightness of the single types, whose 

 early flowering season gives them another plea for inclusion in 

 our gardens. 



We live in a county of Cherry orchards, where acres of 

 white blossom adorn the hillside; but the wild always beats 

 the cultivated in point of time, and so attracts the first rapturous 

 admiration of the year. Wonderful as these orchards are with 

 their smooth turf and browsing sheep and lambs, and overhead 

 the maze of white blossoms on the strong dark branches, they have 

 their drawback at a later season of the year, when, from four 

 in the morning till the sun has set, guns must be kept going 

 to scare away the birds. It is of little use planting Cherry 

 trees, in hope of enjoying fruit as well as flower, where 

 thrushes and blackbirds abound, or the still greedier rooks and 

 pigeons, as a whole tree will be cleared long before the fruit 

 is ripe. 



Cerasus pendula rosea is almost as early as the wild 



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