PRU 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



PRU 



413 



red and acid, ripens in July. Native of Canada. This is 

 easily propagated, by laying down the branches early in the 

 spring: they will take root by the following autumn, when 

 they may be taken off, and either planted in a nursery to 

 get strength, or in the places where they are designed to 

 remain. It may also be propagated by sowing the stones 

 like the Cherry. 



16. Prunus Cerasus; Common or Cultivated Cherry Tree. 

 Umbels nearly sessile ; leaves ovate-lanceolate, smooth, 

 folded when young. The branches are ash-coloured, shin- 

 ing, roundish; leaves stalked, pointed, unequally serrated, 

 veined; stipules toothed, glandular; umbels leafless, pen- 

 dent, composed of but few blossoms, each on a long stalk; 

 calix reflexed ; fruit red, justly celebrated for its agreeable 

 and acid flavour. The Cherry differs from the Plum in hav- 

 ing the stone nearly globular, with the kernel of the same 

 shape. The gum that exudes from this tree is equal to Gum 

 Arabic, and may be used for the same purposes, as in the 

 strangury, heat of urine, &c. A garrison consisting of more 

 than a hundred men were kept alive during a siege of two 

 months, without any other food than this gum, a little of 

 which they frequently took in their months, and suffered it to 

 dissolve gradually. The kernels were formerly supposed to 

 possess very great and singular efficacy in apoplexies, palsies, 

 and nervous disorders in general; and a water distilled from 

 them was long made use of as a remedy for those fits which 

 young children are frequently troubled with. But since the 

 poisonous qualities of Laurel water (another species of Cherry) 

 have been discovered, it has been found that the water drawn 

 from the kernels of Black Cherries, when made strong, is little 

 less noxious; and there is every reason to believe that many 

 hundreds of children have lost their lives by this unsuspected 

 medicine. The wood is hard and tough, used by turners 

 and chairmakers, who stain it to imitate mahogany. This 

 tree is the original stock from which the cultivated sorts of 

 Cherries are derived. Ray mentions the Common Wild 

 Cherry with a red fruit; the Least Wild Heart Cherry Tree, 

 in Lancashire, Cheshire, and Westmoreland ; and the Wild 

 Northern Cherry, with small late-ripe fruit, on the banks of 

 the Tees, near Barnard Castle in Durham. The varieties of 

 eatable Cherries are innumerable. Mr. Miller enumerates, 



1. The Common or Kentish Cherry, from which, 'he says, it 

 is supposed most of the varieties cultivated in the English 

 gardens have been raised, though of this he confesses himself 

 very doubtful ; the differences in the size and shape of their 

 leaves, and in the shoots of the trees, being very great. 



2. The Early May Cherry, which is the first that becomes 

 ripe, and should always be introduced where there is room. 



3. The May Duke, the next ripe, a larger and more valuable 

 fruit. 4. The Arch Duke, which succeeds the May Duke. 

 This, if suffered to hang till it is quite ripe, is an excellent 

 cherry. It should not be gathered before Midsummer, and 

 may hang a fortnight longer, even near London, where it 

 ripens a fortnight sooner than in places forty miles dis- 

 tant. This fruit may be continued till August against a 

 north wall. 5. The Flemish. 6. The Red Heart. 7. The 

 White Heart. 8. The Black Heart. 9. The Amber Heart. 

 10. The Ox Heart. 11. The Lukeward, which is a good 

 bearer. The fruit also is good, of a dark colour, andwill 

 do well in standards. 12. The Carnation: this is valuable 

 for its coming late: it is not the best bearer, though the 

 fruit is firm and fleshy, and will ripen very well on espaliers. 

 13. The Hertfordshire Heart, a firm and well-flavoured fruit, 

 but does not ripen earlier than the end of July or the begin- 

 ning of August. 14. The Morello, which is generally planted 

 against a north wall, and much used for preserving. In a 



warmer aspect, if the fruit be suffered to hang till ripe it 

 will be very fit for the table : on a S. W. wall it will be per- 

 fectly ripe by the middle of August. 15. The Bleeding 

 Heart. 16. The large Spanish Cherry, nearly allied to the 

 Duke, of which it seems to be only a variety, and ripens 

 soon after. 17. The Yellow Spanish Cherry; of an oval 

 shape and an amber colour: it ripens late, is sweet, but not 

 of a rich flavour, and is but a middling bearer. 18. The 

 Double-flowered, which is propagated solely for ornament. 

 It is commonly asserted that Cherries were introduced into 

 England in the time of Henry VIII.; but written evidence 

 has been found, that before the middle of the 15th century 

 the hawkers used to expose cherries for sale in the same 

 manner as is now done early in the season. Lydgate, in the 

 following couplet from his poem called Lickpenny, says, 

 Hotpescode own (one) bejran to cry, 

 Straberrvs rype, and Cherries in the r/,?e. 

 That is, observes Mr. Warton, he cried, Hot, or (as others 

 more properly think) Hotspur Peas, Ripe Strawberries, and 

 Cherries on a bough or twig; ryse, rice, or ris, signifying a 

 long branch, the very same word being to this day used in the 

 west of England. Propagation and Culture. All kinds of 

 Cherry Trees are propagated by budding or grafting the several 

 kinds into stocks of the Black or Wild Red Cherries, which 

 are strong-shooters, and of longer duration than any of the 

 garden kinds. The stones of the Wild Cherry trees are sown 

 in a bed of liy;ht sandy earth in autumn, or are preserved in 

 sand till spring, and then sowed. The young stocks should 

 remain in the nursery beds till the second autumn after 

 sowing; at which time prepare an open spot of good fresh 

 earth well worked. In October, plant out the young stocks 

 at three feet distance row from row, and about a foot asun- 

 der in the rows ; being careful, in taking them up from their 

 seed-beds, to loosen their roots well with a spade to prevent 

 their breaking. Prune their roots; and if they are inclinable 

 to root downwards, shorten the tap-root, but do not prune 

 their tops. The second year after planting out, if they take 

 to planting well, they will be fit to bud, if they are intended 

 for dwarfs ; but if for standards, they will not be tall enough 

 till the fourth year, for they should be budded or grafted 

 nearly six feet from the ground, otherwise the graft will not 

 advance much in height; so that it will be impossible to 

 obtain a good tree from such as are grafted low, unless the 

 graft be trained upwards. The usual way with the nursery 

 gardeners is to bud their stocks in summer, and such of them 

 as miscarry they graft the succeeding spring. Those trees 

 where the buds have taken, must be headed off about the 

 beginning of March, about six inches above the bud ; and 

 when the bud has shot in summer, if there be any appre- 

 hension of its being blown out by the winds, it must be fast- 

 ened with bass or other soft tying, to that part of the stock 

 which was left above the buds. The autumn following these 

 trees will be fit to remove ; but if the ground be not ready 

 to receive them, they may remain two years before they are 

 transplanted ; in doing which, observe not to head them, 

 which is often immediate death ; and if they even survive it, 

 they seldom recover in less than five or six years. If these 

 trees are intended for a wall, plant dwarfs between the stan- 

 dards; but the latter, as the former fill the walls, must be. 

 cut away to make room for them. Never plant standard 

 Cherries over other fruits, fur nothing will prosper under 

 the drip of Cherry-trees. When they are taken up from the 

 nursery, shorten the roots, and cut off all the bruised parts, 

 as also all small fibres, whiph would dry, grow mouldy, and 

 retard the growth of the new fibres in their coming forth ; 

 cut. off likewise the dead part of the stock which was left 



