108 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



fruits. Parkinson refers to thirty-four sorts, and in these 

 later days this number has been considerably exceeded. 

 Loudon we see, in his " Encyclopaedia of Gardening/' 

 gives a list of thirty-six sorts, but expressly indicates 

 that he could have made the list longer, and that he 

 only cared to set down the best kinds. The cherry 

 delights especially in a dry and light soil, but in Kent, 

 the paradise of cherry-growers, many of the best orchards 

 are on a deep loam. Birds, and especially blackbirds, 

 are particularly fond of cherries, . and as they rise 

 at very early hours, long before any one else is about, 

 they manage to do a great deal of mischief. Scare- 

 crows in the trees soon lose their terrors, and where 

 the trees are large it is much easier to suggest 

 netting them over than to accomplish this satisfac- 

 torily. We have often had occasion to wish that the 

 " Small Birds Protection Act " could be somehow supple- 

 mented by a little cross legislation, bearing some such 

 title as the " Cherry and Currant Protection Act," as it is, 

 to say the least of it, aggravating, to watch one's fruit 

 slowly ripening, and then much more rapidly vanishing. 



