DECIDUOUS FRUITS 189 



or root-knot, black-knot of the branches, and leaf-curl are 

 some of the diseases frequently occurring on plums. (See 

 Chapter XVII.) 



Most Japanese and some European plums are self -sterile. 

 Single varieties of these self-sterile sorts should have rows of 

 other kinds blooming at the same time planted with them. 

 If a self-sterile variety is planted alone in an orchard, it will 

 not, of course, bear fruit. 



282. The cherry was common in Greece as early as 300 

 B. C. Pliny states that it was brought to Rome about 60 

 B. C. From the sweet and sour cherry of the Old World, 

 the cultivated varieties were developed. 



The sweet cherry is a tall tree, wild in Europe and central 

 Asia, and the cultivated forms are likewise strong upright 

 growing trees. The sour cherry is a shrub, wild in Asia 

 Minor and perhaps in southeastern Europe, and the culti- 

 vated form is a rather small spreading tree or tall shrub. 

 Among prominent varieties of the sweet cherry are the Ad- 

 vance, Lewelling, Bing, Burbank, Black Republican, Napo- 

 leon, and Tartarian ; of the sour cherry, Morello, Richmond, 

 and Montmorency. 



In comparing the sour with the sweet cherry, U. P. Hed- 

 rick says: 1 "The sour cherry is very cosmopolitan, thriving 

 in many soils; is able to withstand heat, cold and great at- 

 mospheric dryness, if the soil contain moisture; and though 

 it responds to good care, it grows under neglect better than 

 any other tree-fruit. The sour cherry, too, is rather less 

 inviting to insects and fungi than most other stone-fruits, 

 being practically immune to the dreaded San Jose scale. On 

 the other hand the sweet cherry is very fastidious as to soils, 

 is lacking in hardiness to both heat and cold and is a prey to 

 many insects and subject to all the ills to which stone-fruits 

 are heir; it is grown at its best in but few and comparatively 

 limited areas, though these are very widely distributed." 



Hedrick, Cherries of New York. 



