122 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



XXI. 



CHERRIES ARE RIPE. 



THE big whitehearts on the first tree in the orchard are 

 just beginning to blush in ruddy streaks on the sunny 

 side, and the wasps are already finding their way to the 

 softer red pulp of the ripening bigaroons by the further 

 hedgerow. Altogether the little mixed cottage orchard 

 makes up a very pretty picture at the present moment. 

 The gnarled old apple-trees, their limbs thickly covered 

 with dry grey lichen, are now in full summer foliage ; 

 and the green and grey, seen from a little distance, melt 

 together into a beautiful mass of soft subdued colour. 

 The late pink hawthorn is still in half-faded blossom ; 

 the elder is one sheet of white bloom ; while the cherries 

 are rapidly mellowing into pink and crimson. No fruit, 

 indeed, except perhaps the orange, is prettier or more 

 tempting as it hangs on the tree than our English 

 cherry. Besides, it is a son of the soil, a native born ; 

 and, in spite of all that gardeners can do, our real indi- 

 genous fruits thrive better to the last in English mould 

 than any imported aliens. The cherry trees of our 

 orchards spring, in fact, from two separate wild British 

 stocks. The common dwarf cherry, whose large white 

 blossoms often hang out of thickets and copses in "early 



