THE CHEERY. 197 



productive. Fruit, very large, oval, and when fully ripe, intensely black; 

 when mature, the fruit is very juicy, rather soft and tender with a sweet 

 excellent flavor ; when gathered too early it is acid and insipid. The 

 granules arc larger, consequently the fruit is less seedy than any other 

 variety. Ripens about the first of August, and continues in use five or six 

 weeks. 



NEWMAN'S THORNLESS. 



A new variety discovered by Jonas Newman, Ulster Co., N. Y. Pro- 

 mises to be valuable ; growth not so vigorous as New Rochelle and Dor- 

 chester, but produces abundantly of good-sized oval berries of excellent 

 flavor: the canes have but few spines or thorns in comparison to the others, 

 which is an important consideration. We have too little personal know- 

 ledge of it to speak decidedly of its merits. Ripens about the first of 

 August. 



THE CHERRY. 



Gerasus Sylvestris, and C. vulgaris, Arb. Brit. Rosacece of Botanists. 



THE Cherry, in its wild state, is a native of most parts of the 

 United States, and also of Britain ; but the cultivated variety is re- 

 corded as having been brought from Cerasus (whence the name), a 

 city of Pontus, in Asia Minor, and planted in the gardens of Italy 

 by the Roman General, Lucullus, after he had vanquished Mithri- 

 dates, in the year 69, B. C. 



In 1824, Rev. Dr. Robert Walsh made communication to the 

 London Horticultural Society, stating the Cherry to be now growing 

 in the land of its origin, whence it was brought near 2,000 years ago. 



He describes two varieties. " The first of these varieties is a 

 Cherry of enormous size which grows along the northern coast oi 

 Asia Minor, from whence the original Cherry was brought to Eng- 

 land. It is cultivated in gardens always as a standard, and by a 

 graft. The second variety is an amber-colored transparent Cherry, 

 cf a delicious flavor. It grows in the woods, in the interior of Asia 

 Minor, particularly on the banks of the Sakari, the ancient Sanga- 

 rius. The trees attain gigantic size the trunk of one measured 

 in circumference five feet ; height to where the first branch issued, 

 forty feet ; summit of highest branch, ninety feet and this immense 

 tree loaded with fruit." 



From Italy it was introduced into England as early as the forty- 

 second year B. C., although some authorities date its introduction 

 as late as fifty-five years after the Christian Era that is, in the early 

 part of the reign of Nero. The former date appears to be confirmed 



