740 



CHERRY 



CHERRY 



cial fertilizers are little needed. Good cultivation, the 

 yearly cover-crop and an occasional dressing of stable- 

 manure furnish an abundance of food. If, with this 

 treatment, the trees fail to make sufficient growth, and 

 if the drainage be good, the grower should experiment 

 with fertilizers containing potash, phosphoric acid or 

 nitrogen to see which, if any, his trees may need. 



Cherries are picked with stems on, the sweet a few 

 days before fully ripe, the sour when practically 



909. Napoleon cherry. Sweet. 

 (Xjfl 



mature. Some growers guard against breaking the 

 fruit-spurs for the next year by using picking scissors. 

 Cherries are variously packed in boxes and baskets but 

 the container is usually a small one and much art may 

 be displayed in placing in layers, facing, and in making 

 the package in all ways attractive. Fruit for canning 

 must be carefully picked but is sent to the cannery in 

 trays holding one or two pecks. 



The chief commercial plantations in eastern America 

 are found in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, north- 

 ern Ohio and western Michigan. Sweet-cherry grow- 

 ing is precarious because of natural obstacles, and sour 

 cherries are so easily grown that through very abun- 

 dance their sale is often difficult. Yet with both success 

 has been attained by many, the profits ranging as high 

 as $300 to the acre. 



Special difficulties. 



The cherry is attacked by a dozen or more fungi. 

 Of these, three are serious pests. The brown-rot, 

 Sderotinia fructigena, attacks the flowers, leaves, twigs 

 and most disastrously the fruits at ripening time. 

 Leaf-blight, Cylindrosporium Padi, produces diseased 

 spots on the leaves, which for the most 'part drop out, 

 giving a shot-hole effect and eventually causing the 

 fohage to drop prematurely. A common and striking 

 disease of the cherry is black-knot, Plowrightia mor- 

 oosa, characterized by wart-like excrescences on shoots 

 and branches which at maturity are black; affected 

 parts sooner or later die. 



The text-books give no less than forty insect enemies 

 of cherries, of which the plum-curculio, Conotrachelus 

 nenuphar, the peach-borer, Sanninoidea exitiosa, and 

 the San Jos6 scale, Aspidiotus perniciosus, on sweet 



cherries, must be combated. All of the pests named, 

 both fungi and insects, are more destructive to plums 

 and peaches, and the reader is referred to these fruits 

 for treatment which is much the same as for the 

 cherry. 



Sweet cherries suffer severely in the South and the 

 Mississippi Valley, and somewhat in the North, from 

 sun-scald, either directly from the sun's rays or from 

 alternate freezing and thawing in winter or spring. 

 The injury is manifested by the bursting of the bark 

 and the exudation of gum on the south and west sides 

 of the tree. Some immunity from such injuries may be 

 obtained by protecting the trunks with boards or other 

 screens. "Gummosis," or a flow of gum from the wood, 

 often follows injuries of various kinds and the 

 work of insects and fungi in both sweet and sour 

 cherries. 



Types and varieties. 



There are now about 600 varieties of cherries grown 

 in America and Europe, and the names of as many more 

 that have passed from cultivation remain. These are 

 variously grouped, but the following simple classifica- 

 tion takes in the common orchard sorts: 



A. Prunus avium 



(1) The Hearts. Large, heart-shaped, soft-fleshed, 

 sweet cherries, light-colored as represented by Governor 

 Wood and dark as in Black Tartarian. 



(2) The Bigarreaus. Large, sweet, heart-shaped 

 and colored as in the previous group but with firm, 

 crisp and crackling flesh. Well represented by Napoleon 

 (Fig. 909) and Yellow Spanish as light-colored members 

 of the group, and by Schmidt and Bing as dark sorts. 



(3) The Dukes. Somewhat smaller cherries than 

 the Hearts and Bigarreaus, softer in flesh, light-colored 

 and usually sour or nearly so. This group is placed 

 under Prunus avium, but there can be no doubt but 

 that the widely varying Dukes are hybrids between 

 Prunus avium and Prunus Cerasus. May Duke and 

 Reine Hortense serve as illustrations of the group. 



AA. Prunus Cerasus. 



(1) The Amarelles Rather small, light-colored, sour 

 cherries with colorless or nearly colorless juice, pro- 

 duced on upright trees, represented by Early Rich- 

 mond and Montmorency (Fig. 910). 



(2) The Morellos. Also comparatively small and 

 very sour but dark in color and with dark-colored juice 

 and trees with a dropping habit, represented by Eng- 

 lish Morello and Louis Philippe. 



In spite of the great number of varieties, the cherry, 

 of all stone-fruits, seems most fixed in its characters. 

 Thus, the difference between tree and fruit in the cher- 

 ries of the several groups is comparatively slight and 

 many of the varieties come nearly true to seed. So, 

 too, cherries, although probably domesticated as long 

 ago as any other of the tree-fruits, are now most of 

 all like their wild progenitors. Notwithstanding this 

 stability, there are probably rich rewards to be secured 

 in breeding cherries by those who will put in practice 

 the discoveries of recent years in plant-breeding, and 

 will hybridize especially the various groups of the 

 two species now cultivated and introduce wholly new 

 blood from wild species. So little effort has been 

 directed toward improving cherries, and the material 

 seems so promising, that it would seem that with proper 

 endeavor the coming generation may have a new and 

 greatly improved cultivated cherry flora. 



U. P. HEDRICK. 



The cherry in California. 



In commercial importance, the cherry is least of the 

 fruits of the temperate zone grown in California on a 

 commercial scale not considering the quince and 



