312 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



cherry-stones into a little hole : — " I have loved a 

 witch ever since I played at cherry-pit*." Shak- 

 speare also alludes to the same custom. 



The wild cherry, of which there are a good many 

 varieties, is a much more hardy tree than any of those 

 that produce the finer sorts of fruit ; and it is there- 

 fore much cultivated for stocks upon which to g;raft 

 the others, as trees so ii;rafted attain a larger size, 

 are more durable, and less subject to disease. At 

 some of the ruined abbeys and baronial castles there 

 are found cherry-trees, chiefly black ones, which have 

 attained the height of sixty or eighty feet, and con- 

 tinue to produce great quantities of fruit. These 

 ancient sorts are not confined to the warmer parts of 

 the coinitry, but are met with in some of the northern 

 counties of Scotland. Evelyn ranks the black cherry 

 amongst " the forest berry-bearing trees, frequent in 

 the hedges, and growing wild in Herefordshire, and 

 many places." 



The cherry is generally understood to have been 

 brought to Rome, from Armenia, by Lucullus, the 

 conqueror of Mithridates. This was about sixty- 

 eight years before the Christian era ; and such was 

 the fondness for the fruit, that Pliny says, " in less 

 than one hundred and twenty vears after, other 

 lands had cherries, even as far as Britain beyond the 

 ocean." The cherrv is spread over Africa. In Bar- 

 bary it is called " The Ben-y of the King." Des- 

 fontaines (Histoirc des Arhres) contends, in oppo- 

 sition to the received opinion, that the wild cherry is 

 indigenous to France, and of equal antiquity with 

 the oak ; nor can we help thinking, from the situa- 

 tion in which we have seen wild cherries, that the 

 same may be the case with parts of the United 

 Kingdom. 



* Witch of Edmonton. 



