SO OUB COMMON FRUITS. 



and a cherry grafted on a laurel has more than once been 

 shown at a modern exhibition. 



As regards the properties of cherries there is little to 

 be said. The fruit is recommended in fevers for its re- 

 freshiDg qualities, as almost any fruit might be, but even 

 in days when occult virtues were attributed to nearly 

 everything in nature, Parkinson concludes his article 

 upon them, not, as in the case of most of the other fruits, 

 with a list of the special benefits to be derived from their 

 use, but simply with the honest avowal that " all these 

 sorts of cherries serve wholly to please the palate." Dr. 

 Bulleyn, however, the very earliest English writer on 

 such subjects, affirms that they " be most excellent against 

 hotte burning choler," and doubtless were an angry person 

 always to eat half a pound of cherries before letting out 

 the irate thought in words, the sun would be less likely 

 to go down upon his wrath than even were the commonly 

 recommended expedient resorted to of counting 100 be- 

 fore giving vent to it, while the virtue would assuredly 

 have done something more towards securing "its own 

 reward." 



CHAPTEE VII. 

 THE PEACH. 



ITALY rejoices in its vine, Greece in its fig-tree, Eng- 

 land glories in its " home-made" gooseberry, and, indeed, 

 almost every country of Europe has some fruit, either 

 native or adopted, for which it is specially famous ; while 

 on other continents, Arabia blesses Allah for the date- 

 palm, as a more than sufficient compensation for every 

 other deficiency, and South America claims the supreme 

 honour of having supplied the world with pine-apples. 



