70 OTJE COMMON FEUITS. 



corroborate the stomach," an assertion likely to be taken 

 little notice of in days when it is statements rather than 

 stomachs for which the world asks corroboration. 



The wood of the cherry-tree is extensively used in Paris 

 for furniture, being reckoned only second to mahogany. 

 Yet few cherry-trees are ever planted in France, this office 

 being left to the birds, who, however, carry it on with suf- 

 ficent assiduity to secure an unfailing supply, whether for 

 fruits, timber, or as stock upon which to graft the culti- 

 vated kinds, the trees being found both to grow better 

 and to live longer when the stem at least is of the wild 

 kind. The exterior bark of the cherry-tree having more 

 circular fibres than other trees, becomes thereby so tough 

 as sometimes to hinder the growth of the plant, and it is 

 said that in some places slits are made in the bark as a 

 remedial measure, but this seems very doubtful, since, if 

 that part be wounded, the sap exudes in the form of gum, 

 which is looked on as a disease, as the same effect takes 

 place from age or deficiency of nourishment. This gum, 

 which exists in plum-trees also, but is most abundant in 

 the cherry, resembles gum arabic, but only swells when 

 placed in cold water, and requires boiling fully to dis- 

 solve it. It is, however, sometimes used in France for 

 manufacturing purposes when there is a scarcity of gum 

 arabic, but as its extravasation is thought to enfeeble the 

 trees, and the branches must be cut in order to procure 

 any considerable quantity, it is forbidden for any but the 

 proprietor of the land to gather it. 



The first notice we have of cherries in England, after 

 Pliny's mention of their being introduced here by the 

 Romans, occurs in 1415, when Lydgate's verses recount 

 their being cried for sale in London streets. The culture 

 of them seems, however, to have rather languished until 

 the time of Henry VIII., when it received a great impetus 

 from the efforts made by Eichard Haines, fruiterer to that 

 monarch, who imported a number of trees from Flanders 

 and planted them at Tenham in Kent, in which county 

 tradition asserts that those originally brought by the 

 Romans had also found their first resting-place. Before 

 the end of the king's reign they had, in the words of 



