Chapter 



STONE-FRUITS. 



Wisest of all to welcome and make ours 



Whate'er of good, though small, the Present brings, 

 Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds, and flowers, 

 With a child's pure delight in little things, 

 Knowing that mercy ever will endure. " 



R. C. Trench. 



TONE-FRUITS " are those illustrated in the 

 plum and the cherry the most remarkable 

 of all the forty classes into which fruits in 

 general are resolved. For it is among these 

 that we have at once the utmost simplicity 

 of fruit-structure and its beau-ideal. Theoreti- 

 cally, a " fruit " when perfect consists of three distinct and 

 easily separable layers a skin, or " epicarp," under which 

 is pulp or flesh, called the " mesocarp ;" with under this 

 again a hard and bony one, called the " endocarp." In 



