DECIDUOUS TBEES. 403 



sprung from these parents. Our native wild cherry, with black 

 fruit, IS the Ccrasus virginiana. 



There is no fruit-bearing tree so essential to a suburban home 

 as the cherry-tree. Climbing into its branches to eat cherries is 

 one of the pleasantest of June enjoyments for young or old. Half 

 the pleasure of eating cherries is in plucking them where they 

 hang. Some large fruits may be bought more economically than 

 they can be raised on suburban lots, but cherries are emphatically 

 the fruit-trees of village homes. 



The number of varieties in cultivation for their fruit are listed 

 by hundreds in the nursery catalogues. We shall attempt no 

 enumeration of these, but simply give the names of a few standard 

 sorts, and describe more fully only such as are particularly known 

 as ornamental trees. 



The following varieties, ripening pretty nearly in the order 

 named, are among the best for fruit : Baumann's May, a rank up- 

 right grower, forming a conical tree ; the early purple Guigne, a 

 globular tree with small and numerous branches ; Knight's early 

 black, a strong grower, rather spreading ; the black tartarian, of 

 strong fastigiate growth ; the Mayduke, globular and compact ; 

 Elton, pyramidal ; Downer's late, rather compact ; Downton, pyra- 

 midal ; late Duke, similar to Mayduke in form. Nearly all the best- 

 fruited sorts form handsome trees, though many of them in the 

 western States are more tender and liable to disease than wildings. 

 The reader is referred to fruit-books for a selection of cheiTies 

 suited to special localities. All the fine cherries seem to do much 

 better on gravelly and clayey soils than in a light sandy loam, or 

 rich alluvium, and should never be forced into rapid growth for the 

 first five years after plantmg. In rich soils their growth is so 

 rapid, when young, as to engender diseases before they are full 

 grown, especially where there is not good subsoil drainage. 



The following, known as bird cherries, are planted solely for 

 ornament : 



The European Bird Cherry, Cerasus padiis, is considered by 

 many one of the most ornamental of small shrubby trees. That 

 excellent horticultural authority, Thomas Meehan, of Germantown, 



