74 OUR COMMON FRUITS. 



and London mentions one avenue in Moravia from Brunn 

 to Olmutz as being 60 miles long, while others extend 

 all the way between Strasburg and Munich. These are 

 planted by desire of the government ; and though the 

 main crop when ripe belongs to the proprietors of the 

 ground, all passengers are allowed to partake of them 

 freely while growing, so long as they do not hurt the 

 trees. Should the owner wish to preserve the fruit of 

 any particular tree untouched, he has only to tie a wisp 

 of straw round one of the branches, when no one will 

 think of gathering from it, this mark of "taboo" being 

 always religiously respected. 



" The cherry-tree," observes Pliny, " is one of the first 

 that yields fruit to his master, in token of thankfulness 

 and recognizance of his pains all the year." And, indeed, 

 the appearance of this fruit is still one of London's earliest 

 signs of summer. Tied carefully in scattered rows on 

 sticks, or grouped closely into little " posies " as though 

 they had grown together to form a sort of magnified mul- 

 berry, they afford the first faint flush of " celestial rosy 

 red," brightening the street stalls almost as soon as the 

 fruiterers' windows, glad harbingers of a radiant burst to 

 come, when full July shall pour out all her crimson trea- 

 sures and glorify the year with a flood of ruddy ripeness. 

 Though thus early in developing its produce, the blossoms 

 only whiten the tree with their pure snowy lustre about 

 the same time as the later apple and pear put on their 

 spring vestures. They are like those of most of our fruit- 

 trees, formed on the type of the rose, a calyx with five 

 petals surrounding a ring of numerous stamens, the centre 

 in this case being occupied by a single ovary, which event- 

 ually becomes the fruit, every trace of the blossom dis- 

 appearing when this is formed. The perfect fruit is, in 

 botanical language, a drupe, for the hard or bony part, 

 which combines with skin and flesh to make up its being, 

 is not, as in the case of nuts, spread in Crustacesen style 

 over its exterior, but, after the fashion of superior animals, 

 is kept as a skeleton within, collected into a central ball 

 as a foundation for its globose shape. A very pleasant 

 object to the eye is this round ruddy shining cherry ; and 



