ROCKY MOUNTAIN- CHERRY 237 



mond cherries. The illustration, Fig. 38, shows the 

 ordinary type of fruit of the sand cherry, nearly natu- 

 ral size. The fruit is ordinarily black, always without 

 bloom, and in New York ripens late in July and early 

 in August. It is very abundant on the sand dunes of 

 Lake Michigan, where it makes a shrub from five to 

 ten feet high, and bears very profusely of variable 

 fruits. Some of these natural varieties are large, 

 sweet and palatable, and at once suggest an effort to 

 ameliorate them. The fact that the plant grows in 

 the lightest of sand suggests its use for poor or arid 

 regions, which are present in most states, and upon 

 which few or no crops can be grown with profit. This 

 cherry was advertised in the Midway Plaisance at 

 the World's Fair, 1893, by Martin Klein & Co., of 

 Detroit. The plant was said to have probably come 

 from Japan, but it was the ordinary Prunus pumila 

 of our eastern states. The plant was recommended 

 chiefly, it seems, for some medicinal virtue which was 

 said to reside in its red roots, although its merits as 

 a fruit plant were not overlooked. Unfortunately, 

 there are no named varieties of this sand cherry on 

 the market, and very little attention has been given 

 to it by experimenters. It has less merit as a fruit 

 plant than the next species, but it is nevertheless 

 worth attempts at improvement. 



The western sand or bush cherry (P. Besseyi) grows 

 on the plains from Manitoba to Kansas, and westward 

 to the mountains of Colorado and Utah. It is in culti- 

 vation as the Improved Dwarf Rocky Mountain cherry, 

 introduced in 1892 by Charles E. Pennock, of Bell- 

 vue, Colorado. It has received attention at many ex- 

 periment stations. This species is a dwarfer and more 



