78 OTJE, COMMON FRUITS. 



than when budding or grafting are resorted to. The 

 stones must be either planted in autumn or preserved in 

 sand until the spring, which would seem to betoken no 

 very tenacious hold upon vitality ; yet one at least of the 

 cherry tribe, a N. American variety, appears to possess 

 very great power of lying dormant until circumstances 

 favourable to its development shall occur, since it is diffi- 

 cult otherwise to account for the peculiar property which, 

 according to Michaux, it possesses, in common with the 

 paper birch, of springing up spontaneously in all places 

 which have at any time been cultivated, and in parts of 

 the forests that have been burned, either where accident 

 has made an extensive clearance, or even merely where a 

 fire has been once lighted by a passing traveller, as though 

 some strange sympathy with man induced it only to spring 

 into existence in spots marked by his footsteps, or where 

 the element of which man alone is master had at least 

 prepared the way for his presence. 



Speaking of the various uses of the wild cherry in 

 Prance, Bosc says prettily, that " it is a manna sent by 

 Heaven for young birds," and cherries of all kinds, ex- 

 cept the Kentish and ]\lorello, are much preyed upon by 

 these " light-winged gentry." Eut the feathered race are 

 not entirely left to compete with zealous man, so apt to 

 claim " all things for his use," for a share of what he too 

 can relish ; for the Creator's tender care has even allotted 

 to them a whole family of the Cerasus tribe for their 

 special and exclusive use, as far at least as the fruit is con- 

 cerned, which are thence called " Bird Cherry-trees," and 

 which grow wild in many parts of Europe and America. 

 The fruit, which is small, with a very large stone, black, 

 and growing in racemes like currants, instead of in clusters 

 as our cherries do, is so nauseous that it is quite unfit for 

 human use, except that in some places in the North a 

 spirit is distilled from it, or it is infused in brandy to give 

 a flavour which some approve ; but is greedily devoured 

 by birds of all kinds, while the leaves are so peculiarly; 

 attractive to insects that the tree is often quite laid bare 

 at the very beginning of summer, when other foliage has 

 scarcely been attacked. This circumstance led a Bavarian 



