120 HOME FRUIT GROWER 



mostly too tart to eat raw until very ripe. The sweets are often 

 considerably thinned out, before fully matured, by birds and boys. 



Of the two main groups the sour is by far the more cosmopolitan. 

 It is. grown from Newfoundland to British Columbia and in almost, if 

 not all, of the United States and it thrives in a wider range of climates 

 cold, hot, dry and soils than perhaps any other tree fruit. The 

 sweet varieties are more fastidious as to temperature, humidity and 

 soils, are less hardy, more subject to insect and fungous attack. But 

 regret on these accounts would not prevent my planting them in my 

 home orchard unless I knew them to be a failure in the neighborhood. 

 Even then I'd be tempted to risk planting a few. Sweet Cherries are 

 the earliest of our Northern tree fruits; they begin to bear while young, 

 produce fruit each year, and because freshly picked, ripe, home-grown 

 Cherries are wonderfully superior to those picked even the day before, 

 they should be in every home plantation. 



Among the hundreds of varieties cultivated to some extent in 

 America are many which in some one respect may be better than 

 the sixteen listed on following pages, but for one or more reasons they 

 are less desirable or more difficult to grow to perfection, or they are 

 not usually carried by nurserymen. While the ones discussed are 

 among the most adaptable and otherwise desirable, they (especially 

 the sweet ones) may be disappointing in the South and in the Prairie 

 States, for there Cherries often do much more poorly than in other 

 parts of the country. In these less favored sections, therefore, the 

 sour varieties should be chosen first as the more reliable and the sweet 

 ones tried with caution. 



In buying Cherry trees preference should always be given to those 

 propagated on Mazzard roots. These cost more than do those on 

 Mahaleb roots, but they are worth all the difference because they make 

 better, longer-lived trees. Nurserymen offer them less often than 

 the others because they have more difficulty in growing them and 

 unthinking or unknowing fruit growers call for cheap trees. In plant- 

 ing a big business orchard a large difference in first cost is, of course, 

 an important item, but for the home orchard it will be a small one 

 more than offset by the greater likelihood of success in making 

 the trees live and develop into large, healthy, long-lived and 

 prolific trees. So when looking over nursery catalogues be sure 

 to order from the one in which prices are quoted on Mazzard-grown 

 varieties. 



Sour Cherries do best on moderately heavy loams; sweet ones 

 on lighter, especially gravelly, shaly, sandy or stony ones. Usual 

 distances for the former are 15 to 20 feet; for the latter 25 to 30. The 

 trees are generally headed at 12 to 18 inches and allowed to develop 



